


Cassowary

by DLeyville



Category: James Bond - Ian Fleming
Genre: 1960s, Assassination, Berlin (City), Defection, Espionage, From Russia With Love - Freeform, Gen, Spectre - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:34:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DLeyville/pseuds/DLeyville
Summary: “Station P-Paris was contacted eighteen hours ago. It looks as though the architect behind Romanova’s defection is himself looking to defect.”“Sir?”“From what we understand so far, the whole affair was an absolute cock-up. Romanova was supposed to seduce you, the seduction is filmed and the footage leaked to the press. The Secret Service is humiliated, and to boot SPECTRE picks up the LEKTOR and sells it to the highest bidder. Instead, you make off with the girl and the decryptor and SPECTRE has a handful of dead agents.”“That would be embarrassing.”“SPECTRE is not known for its compassion, 007, as you can well imagine. The punishment for failure would be catastrophic.”_____________________________________________________________________Immediately following the events in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE, MI6 learns that SPECTRE's head of planning, Kronsteen, wants to defect. Bond is assigned to bring him in - with the help of the KGB, the CIA, and a freelance agent named Ackermann. But nothing is clear-cut or as it seems in the world of espionage.Closer to the literary James Bond than the movies.If you enjoy, leave a comment or a review!
Relationships: james bond/kronsteen
Comments: 3





	1. Russian Aftermath

**CASSOWARY**

by J. Lin d’Leyville-Svik

  
  


> “If you must play, decide upon three things at the start:  the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.”

― Chinese proverb

  
  
  
  


PART ONE :

The Game

“Succumb.”

Bond, who was reading an article in the London Times about a coup d'état in Honduras and wondering idly whether or not the CIA were involved, merely answered with, “Uh-hum.”

“It’s a good word.”

“The best,” he said distractedly.

Miss Moneypenny looked up from her paperback book, which was guaranteed to increase your vocabulary, one word a day for a year. “It means to fail to resist pressure, temptation, or some other negative force.” She looked back down at the book and rolled the word around in her mouth as though she were sampling a hard candy. “Suck-come-buh. Sukkum-buh. Suh-kuh-buh-mum.”

“It also means to end something through destructive or disruptive forces.” He punctuated his statement by noisily flipping pages in the newspaper.

“You could stand to improve your vocabulary, James.”

“I beg to differ.”

The intercom on Moneypenny’s desk buzzed, followed by a familiar craggy voice. “Send him in, Miss Moneypenny.”

She didn’t speak, but merely gestured with a pen in her fingertips that he was to go through the leather-backed door.

The office was not as grand as he would have supposed for the head of MI-6, with its dusty-red carpet of chasing flowers and two club chairs in green leather, neither of them particularly comfortable. The wooden desk was care-worn, an antique dating back to the time of Nelson, or so held office gossip. Much of its spartan decor related to naval ships, including a brass telescope that looked out on Regent’s Park, and the paintings on the walls of sea vessels, a reflection of M’s previous career in the British Navy. And of course, there was the huge, oddly located safe right behind his chair, which contained no money or specie, but top secret documents. No attempt to hide it, it just occupied the corner of the room behind M’s chair, providing support to a handful of large ledgers.

M wore his brown checked today, with a red bow tie, and gestured for Bond to take a seat with the stem of his pipe. “Good afternoon, 007,” he said, as was his customary greeting.

“M,” said Bond.

“How are things in Venice?”

“Fine, sir, as far as I know. Romanova has been particularly forthcoming, and the reports from the interrogators have been particularly positive.”

“Yes, good,” he said, and in a distracted fashion collected a leather tobacco pouch from inside his desk. “I’d heard as much.”

“Given my, er, intimate relationship with Miss Romanova, they won’t allow me to sit in on questioning periods, although they’ve asked me to review some material and to accompany her on walks about the grounds.”

“Fine, yes,” said M. He ran a pipe cleaner through his briarwood and didn’t seem to be paying any attention, a deception which Bond would not fall for. “We’ll be transferring her to London in the next week or so. I suspect, if all goes well, it’ll be a new identity and assimilation classes in two months’ time.”

“Very good, sir.”

A moment of silence as M packed the bowl of his pipe with tobacco. If Bond were impatient, it didn’t show. His right leg crossed over his left, and both hands rested comfortably on the arms of the chair ⸺ or as comfortably as they could.

“It appears that she knows little about the SPECTRE organization. Do you agree, 007?”

“It would appear so. From what we gather, Klebb had recruited her to act as a swallow” ⸺ a female agent used to entice an enemy agent or an intelligence organization’s target by means of sexual attraction “⸺ and she believed she was still in the employ of the Russian security apparatus.”

“She didn’t know that Klebb had gone over to SPECTRE.”

“No, sir.”

M went through the ritual of lighting the pipe with a battered silver lighter, a souvenir of sorts from the Battle for the Atlantic. “She’s been forthcoming about Russian intelligence and code-craft, and particularly about the LEKTOR decryptor.”

“Yes, sir. She’s especially bright and observant.”

M leaned back. His pipe lit, he sucked on the stem and stared off for a moment. “We have had an interesting development.”

Bond said nothing.

“Station P-Paris was contacted eighteen hours ago. It looks as though the architect behind Romanova’s defection is himself looking to defect.”

“Sir?”

“From what we understand so far, the whole affair was an absolute cock-up. Romanova was supposed to seduce you, the seduction is filmed and the footage leaked to the press. The Secret Service is humiliated, and to boot SPECTRE picks up the LEKTOR and sells it to the highest bidder. Instead, you make off with the girl and the decryptor and SPECTRE has a handful of dead agents.”

“That would be embarrassing.”

“SPECTRE is not known for its compassion, 007, as you can well imagine. The punishment for failure would be catastrophic.”

“I would suppose so.”

“We understand that the architect of this fiasco managed to run, to go to ground as it were. Gone into hiding. Until eighteen hours ago, when he contacted Station P and asked for asylum.”

Bond involuntarily lurched forward. “He wants to defect?”

“It would appear so.” M waved the pipe at him. “Before we get all excited over this turn of events, 007, I want you as point man on this. You’re to go to Paris and meet up with the people on the ground. Try to determine if this is the real thing.”

“Our knowledge of SPECTRE is almost nil, sir. If there is anything that we can do to fill in details....” He let that sentiment hang.

“Precisely, 007. Moneypenny has you booked on the 4:30 BOAC flight to Orly. Twenty-four hours in Paris, then report back to me on their sense of what this is about.”

“With all due respect, sir, it seems a phone call would suffice.”

M shook his head. “You’ve seen this organization face to face, something few agents can say. You’d have a better feel talking with them directly.”

“Very good, sir.”

M looked down at a folder on his desk and picked up a gold-plated pen, a clear indication that the interview was over.

Through the leather-padded door, Bond found Moneypenny holding a ticket in its rectangular folder. “Your contact is LaPorte. Plus, there’s a reservation at the George V under Universal Exports. Your name is Jones.”

“How very generic.”

“And I suppose I don’t have to remind you to keep the receipts.”

# # #

It wasn’t the sort of mission, for want of a better word, where Bond felt his life was at risk. It was closer to a nanny detail, although it allowed him twenty-four hours in Paris on the company’s dime, within reason. He figured this meant that a visit to Le Crazy Horse de Paris was out of the question. Not that they would give receipts, or that he would be comfortable passing those on to her.

The George V had been a fixture to Parisian life since its opening in 1928, grand enough to have the street named after it. It stood proud amid buildings both modern and Belle Epoque, nine floors of great sobriety ⸺ a short walk from the American Cathedral, for those in need of unburdening their souls.

Inside, the lobby was a grande dame among hotels, with immaculate wrought-iron door frame and 17th-century tapestries adorning the walls, and glossy marble floors. It would be antiseptic but for the rich assortment of flowers in giant art deco vases, brilliant red roses and purple lilies.

The check-in process was smooth and easy. Universal Export was a regular customer, and although ‘Jones’ changed with each visit, each time he or she was accorded the same warm hospitality that the George V was known for. “And you have a message,” the concierge informed Bond.

Bond accepted the envelope.

Inside, a small square of paper with a hand-written note:

Cafe Sommerville

8:30pm

LaGrande

Bond folded it and tucked it into an inside pocket of his coat. “Thank you.”

As it was already after six, he decided to dine out, a drink or two, and to arrive at the Cafe Sommerville a little early, just in case.

A discrete inquiry and he learned that the Cafe Sommerville was in the 13th Arrondissement, where the boulevard des Italiens crossed rue de Marivaux, in an Art Nouveau building that had too much detail to have character, a great grotesquery of a building with bubbling surfaces and strange vinery worked into its façade.

Inside was at least clean and more modern, with black-and-white checkered floors and wrought iron tables. White tile covered the walls, and the bar too was painted white. A single woman stood at the counter, wrapped in an apron that extended to her ankles.

As Bond entered, she said, “Bonjour. Bienvenue.”

“Je cherche M. LaGrande.”

“Ahh,” she said. “They are in back.” And she gestured to a door that accessed the kitchen area.

Bond passed through the kitchen, where he was duly ignored, and through another door into what he assumed was a pantry.

He was correct.

It was crowded, with one of the wrought iron tables having been moved in here, along with three chairs. Between that, and the metal racks, the sacks of potatoes on the floor, crates of wine, and a few pieces of broken equipment stored back here, it was dark and narrow and uncomfortable.

A silver ice bucket, a bottle of Glenlivet, and three tumblers crowded on top of the table, and a low-wattage bulb provided the minimum of illumination.

The woman who stood smiled generously. He was taken aback, for she was French-Vietnamese, he assumed. Her features were a pleasant mix of Caucasian and Asian, notable for her jet-black hair straight down the sides and back, and her lithe body under a simple well-cut frock. She extended a hand and said, “M. Bond? I am LaPorte, Station P-Paris. Glad to have you.”

“James,” he said, “the pleasure is all mine.”

“Françoise,” she said, and then indicated the man seated at the table. 

He was her opposite, a dowdy man with well-receded hair, and steel-rimmed spectacles balanced on his too-small nose. He wore a jacket with a tiny checked pattern in mustard yellow on white, and a silk cravat. The small room was already cloyed with the smell of groceries, and he added to it with a potent cologne.

“M. Bond ⸺ James ⸺ this is Dr. Till Bendicht Glauser. Dr. Glauser, M. Bond.”

“You will be one of M’s boys,” he said by way of greeting. He exposed a white palm which Bond shook. It was like selecting a fish at a fishmonger’s stall.

Dr. Glauser reached to his left for a silver-headed cane, which he brought close. His every movement was carefully studied.

LaPorte gestured for Bond to sit, which he did. He crammed himself against the table’s edge. Standing, she cracked open the Glenlivet and poured fingers of whiskey into each tumbler. “I’m sorry about the accommodations,” she said. “This whole thing came up rather quickly, and I didn’t have time to set up something more comfortable. Plus, we’re under a tight budget these days.”

Both Bond and Dr. Glauser watched with a sense of detachment. Bond felt a twinge of guilt that London had booked him into one of the most expensive hotels in Paris.

When she’d filled the glasses, Dr. Glauser took one and said, “So you’re here about the Kronsteen business, yes?”

“Kronsteen?” Bond asked. “Is that his name?”

“Tov Kronsteen,” he said. “Does it mean anything to you?”

Bond shrugged. It rang the faintest of bells, but he couldn’t place it. “We know he is number five in the SPECTRE organization.”

At that, Dr. Glauser gave Bond the kind of smile that a professor bestows upon a not-too-bright student who is trying really hard. “That’s your first mistake.”

“What is?”

“The numbers in SPECTRE are not ranks, they are identifiers.”

LaPorte said, “The numbers are randomly assigned and change every few months.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Dr. Glauser said, “You’re thinking of SPECTRE as a military organization, with a general at the top and privates at the bottom. But SPECTRE is more like a hive colony, with one leader and very few second-in-commands. Or rather, a junta of leaders, all equal and all working within their own little kingdoms, controlled by a single entity. Klebb was number two for the duration of this Turkish fiasco, and she would have been well-rewarded if she had survived and it had been a success. But she was no more second in command than I am. Or you. It’s all masterminded by one individual. They are all in command.”

“Who is he?”

“Or she,” Dr. Glauser corrected. He shrugged. “We don’t know, unfortunately.”

“A lot of SPECTRE seems to be hired on an as-needed basis,” added LaPorte. 

“And I have to ask,” said Bond to Dr. Glauser, “what’s your expertise in all this?”

“Dear boy, I’ve been studying SPECTRE since it first debuted on the world stage in 1961, working with Dr. Julius No. You were involved in that, I believe.”

“Tangentially.”

“SPECTRE of course stands for ‘Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion.’ Originally it was a small group of professional criminals, but it’s grown into a vast international organisation with its own elaborate facilities and sophisticated criminal operations. Its governing body was hand-picked from the Gestapo, SMERSH, Tito's secret police, the American Mafia and the Unione Corse, and other organizations. They have between eighteen and twenty-one leaders at any given time. It is primarily a commercial enterprise and not aligned to any nation or political ideology.”

“This is all most fascinating,” said Bond. “But we were discussing Kronsteen.”

“So you are the man who is going to bring Kronsteen across the wire.” Dr. Glauser waved down Bond’s nonexistent protest with a limp palm. There has never been a member of SPECTRE who has defected. Some were captured alive and, through interrogation, have given us a perspective on who or what SPECTRE is. But that’s like investigating a blacked out cathedral using a flashbulb as your only illumination.” Dr. Glauser brought his cane in between his knees and rested both hands on its silver head. “Now, why would no member of this organization willingly leave?”

“They’re well compensated, I’m sure.”

“And they are. We’re sure that Kronsteen has a personal fortune of a hair over two hundred thousand United States dollars. And as far as we can determine, he is not a particularly avaricious fellow.”

“That’s a lot of money.”

“The thing is, Kronsteen is not motivated by money. He was the head of SPECTRE’s Planning Department. He’d been a chess champion in Czechoslovakia for several years.” Dr. Glauser rattled the remaining cubes in his tumbler. “He’s also an amoral utilitarian. He thinks of people as chess pieces, and constantly devises ways to move them and use them to his advantage. Good and evil are of no consequence, nor human life, Even his own children are but tools to him.”

“He sounds lovely.”

“Oh, he’s terrible. If he’s looking to defect, it’s only because he knows his days are numbered.”

“We can protect him.”

“No, you can’t.” Dr. Glauser said that in a calm, conversational tone, much the same way he might say that it wasn’t going to rain. “The symbol of SPECTRE is an octopus. Do you know why?”

“Because it’s scary?”

“Because it’s tentacles are everywhere. I assure you there are agents of SPECTRE in your own intelligence organization.”

“Moles?”

“Infiltrators. As they are in the CIA, the FBI, the KGB, Mossad, the Intelligence Bureau, and so on and so on. You bring Kronsteen in, they will get to him eventually.”

“All right,” said Bond, feeling weary. Talking with Dr. Glauser was wearying. “Here’s the big question. Kronsteen, is he defecting or not?”

“Let me put it this way.” Dr. Glauser extended a finger like he was about to tap Bond on the nose. “If you bring him in, we’d love to have him.”


	2. Berlin Meeting

“Dr. Glauser would just love to have him,” Bond said.

“Good,” said M. “So is he coming?”

“We still don’t know.”

M stood at the brass telescope, as if he were contemplating using it. He held a manila folder in his hand, closed, and by the vacant expression on his face Bond wondered if he’d gotten lost in his office.

“This SPECTRE business,” he said to the room.

Bond craned his neck around. “Sir?”

“What’s their take on him? On Kronsteen?”

“No one seems sure,” Bond confessed. “He certainly has a motive to run, and it would make sense for him to run to us. Well, as much sense as anything.”

“They seemed torn on it,” M agreed. 

“I feel it’s worth pursuing, sir. If there’s a chance if gaining any intelligence concerning SPECTRE, its operations, or its plans, it could well be worth it.”

“I agree,” said M. “Ackermann.”

“Theodor Ackermann?” Bond asked. “Theodor Gabriel Ackermann?”

“Do you know of any other, 007?” he asked mildly.

“Certainly we can handle this in-house.”

“The Americans have expressed an interest in whatever we can glean about SPECTRE. This is their request.”

“The last time I checked, sir, we don’t take orders from the Americans.”

“And we still don’t,” M said in a firm tone. “This is a courtesy that we’re extending to them. They have resources that we don’t have.” He flicked the manila folder to make his point. “You will liaise with him in Berlin. I’ve already alerted Documents that you’ll be down there later to get papered up.”

“We had other people that we can use,” Bond said. “People who would be acceptable to the Americans.”

“They requested him, 007. If we’re going to maintain American goodwill on this, we have to work with him. Besides, he’s efficient, he understands our needs, and he’s noisy enough to draw attention away from our people.”

“Is he trustworthy, sir? Men like Ackermann don’t have motives. He’s a mercenary who’s available to the highest bidder.”

“We can’t expect all of our people to be saints, 007. The only protection he ever had from us was old-fashioned money.”

“People like Ackermann are in danger ⸺ real, physical danger ⸺ every minute of every day. He changes his motive every time he comes to us, but his goal is always the same. His only weapon is money.”

“It’s his only protection.” M regarded Bond for a moment, his eyes hard and steely. “And as a department, what sort of protection can we offer him?”

“Any piece of information they can snatch, he will sell.”

“Oh, that’s understood, 007. But we won’t write off Ackermann just yet. We should keep him in a cul-de-sac. A nice sterile test-tube where he can be useful.”

“The moment Ackermann feels we are putting him on ice, he’ll hop off and shop around for another job.”

“I believe there will be no question of leaving him available for the highest bidder. Good day, Bond.”

# # #

The Censorship and Documentation Section was the red-haired step-child of MI-6. It was occasionally broken up into two separate units, and at other times welded back together. It was part of the Intelligence Directorate, then for a time under Q Branch, then briefly was its own entity and then even more briefly was part of Personnel, before the Director determined that his employees were making liberal use of easily-available false identities to run up home loans and the like. Moneys were paid, scandal avoided, and Censorship and Documentation found itself under the thumb of the Deputy Director for Intelligence Services, nominally attached to Research and Analysis.

It was still housed in the basement of the Broadway Building, while much of the apparatus of MI-6 was already relocated to their larger and better-suited headquarters at Century House, on Westminster Bridge Road. The fact that it was still in the old location, still stuffed into the dank basement, indicated the odd feeling that the SIS had toward this section of its organization ⸺ hated, but necessary.

That censorship and documentation were lumped together was a caprice of history. Documentation originally meant the keeping of records, although as the British intelligence needs grew, so did the need for better covers. It wasn’t every rich, idle playboy could bum off to the Malay Peninsula or Vienna and try to scrape up secrets, eventually it took trained professionals ⸺ and that trained professional, passing himself off as a German college professor seeking out antiques in the backwaters of the Ottoman Empire couldn’t be captured with a British driver’s license in his pocket.

Bond was allowed past the small security gate that controlled access to the Broadway Building and took the elevator down.

It was as you’d expect of a basement office, lit in stark fluorescence and tiled in sheet linoleum and painted a colour that was not grey, not beige and not off-white cream, but some peculiar mixture of those three.

The Papers Section of Censorship and Documentation was behind a green-painted door simply marked ‘11-A,’ a number which meant nothing as far as he could determine.

“Hello,” Bond said as he pushed through.

“Well, hello, James, fancy meeting you here.”

“Gretchen McLannister,” he said, not so much a greeting as an identification.

The Papers Section, like much of Censorship and Documentation, was hand-me-downs and left-overs. Her desk, laid athwart a straight line from the door, was World War Two surplus in necrous green, and the file cabinets against the wall had survived the Blitz. A framed poster advertised Hawaii in old, faded colors. She herself was trim and attractive in a particularly Northern European way ⸺ her last name was the result of a marriage, he dying in the war and she keeping his name. Her blonde hair had been pulled into the sort of tight bun that seemed to stretch her face taunt. But she smiled, the sort of reflex action that doesn’t touch the eyes.

“You look good, James. It’s been a while.”

“Yes,” he said with a false heartiness. “How are you?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Gretchen said with an equally false heartiness. “Still wondering where you are. Last I remember, we had plans to see a concert at Albert Hall. Next thing I know, you're on the injured roster after some sort of dust-up in Jamaica."

“You know better than to ask about missions, Gretchen."

"You could have called, James."

"I’m sorry, I meant to, when I got back.”

“Of course you did!” she said with a jollity that was as fake as it was terrifying. “You just couldn’t find me, what with me being transferred down here to the dungeons.”

“Yes, I was going to ask. You were in Payroll, last I heard.”

“A complaint, believe it or not. I don’t know what I did, but next thing I know, I’m sent down here.” She indicated the dingy room as though she were showing a Versailles bedroom. “It’s not so bad. We have our own tea trolley. And Fridays are special, you get to wear a silly tie if you want.”

“Who complained about you? I can’t imagine anybody having anything to complain of.”

“I don’t know, James, but I think it originated from your offices. You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?”

“I’ve been out of the country for quite a while,” he lied, but his first thought was Moneypenny. 

“Still,” she said, “it’s work, right? Now, you’re here for a regular set-up, right?”

“Whatever’s in the folder,” he said.

Gretchen opened a folder on her desk. “The available names,” she said to herself, and ran a finger down a column. “Here we go. Keith Myass. That sounds like it might work.”

“Keith Myass?”

“Or Thor Buttoques? That’s one I can relate to.”

“I don’t know if that one would work,” Bond said with a gulp.

“Walt Thematter? Ollie Oxenfrei? I like Moe Thananinch, that’s a good one for you. Or Colin Themarines.”

“Gretchen, are you serious?”

“No, I’m messing with you, James. Moneypenny called it down earlier today, we’re already set up.” She opened a drawer and removed a folder, which she passed to him over the desk top.

Bond opened it. Inside, clipped to the manila cover, were a dog-eared British passport and a driver’s license. A single-page bio fleshed out the cover.

He looked up. “Melvin P. Neydermeier?”

“Yes.”

“Of the Plywood Research Council?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think I prefer Thor Buttoques.”

# # #

With the defeat of the Nazis and the end of World War II, the victorious Allies asserted joint sovereignty over the whole of Germany, which was divided into four occupation zones, with one each administered by an Allied victor ⸺ the United States, the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union. 

Like Germany, the capital city of Berlin was jointly occupied by the four Allied powers. In 1949, the United States, United Kingdom and French governments ended their occupation, and those parts of Germany, including Berlin, quickly evolved into the Federal Republic of Germany, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or ‘West Germany’ unofficially, and a large portion of the city became ‘West Berlin.’ The eastern portion of the country remained under Soviet control, but was declared its own country and named the German Democratic Republic, Deutsche Demokratische Republik. Its seat of government remained Berlin, or unofficially, East Berlin.

A semipermeable barrier of chicken- and barbed-wire separated the two halves of the nation. Both sides allowed rail, ground and air traffic across their borders, although East Germany as a foreign nation required the appropriate forms, stamps and passports. The arrangement had remained mostly hospitable, barring occasional events such as the Berlin Blockade or the Berlin Uprising.

The vast flat scrubland that is the heart of Germany, the Magna Germania, extended from the Urals to the Elbe, with only Berlin as a break in its monotony. It stood in the heart of the North German Plain, in a wide glacial valley carved out by the Spree, and which now cut through the center of Berlin in a narrow channel of a river feeding innumerable canal offshoots. At no point does a grand bridge majestically span its width, norare great buildings erected upon its shores. Berlin was, and always had been, a city of merchants.

The British Airways Boeing 707 descended into Templehof in the early afternoon. From the air, the Soviet Army War Memorial at Treptower Park stood out as the first thing Bond really noticed, an expansive rolling lawn of a park alongside the Spree, over two hundred acres in size. The Soviets had converted it into a cemetary for their war dead, commemorated with a monument that resembled a pair of red granite bookends, and a forty-foot-tall bronze statue of a Russian soldier carrying a child and a sword, representing the worst in Soviet Realist Art.

Processed and equipped with his baggage, a single grip, James Bond exited the utilitarian elegance of Tempelhof, to find Theodor Gabriel Ackermann waiting for him just outside of the departures gate. He leaned against the passenger door of a black Mercedes-Benz Model 300, with a bright and insincere grin plastered to his face and a cigarette clipped between his lips. 

A tall and leathery American sort stood alongside him. He was rugged of chin and sandy of hair and squinty of eye, and had carefully buttoned himself into a tan trench coat.

The car had been scrubbed clean and highly polished, and the same could be said of Ackermann. He was a little older and Bond, trim and kissed by the sun, as though he’d just come from a Spanish vacation. He wore a well-cut Berlin suit of lightweight worsted and a gold watch. 

Ackermann levered himself off of the Mercedes and extended a hand to Bond. “Hey, James, welcome to Berlin.” His hand was so tanned that his nails seemed pale by comparison. 

Bond forced a smile. “Hello, Theodor. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

Ackermann introduced the squinty-eyed man by jerking a thumb toward him. “Major Arnold, U.S. Army.”

Bond shook hands with him. “It’s good to have you with us,” Arnold said. His voice was as squinty as his eyes.

Bond said, “Thanks. This is a town where you need friends.” 

“We’ll take you to your hotel,” Arnold offered while he held the rear door for Bond. 

Bond said, “I don’t think I’m set up in one.”

“No problem,” said Arnold, “we put you in the Kempi. It’s nice.” 

Ackermann climbed into the passenger seat, while Arnold squeezed himself in behind the wheel.

“Sure,” said Bond, “sounds fine.”

The Mercedes inserted itself into traffic the way a Russian nurse would insert a needle into your arm.

“You’re on the government tit, right?” asked Arnold over his shoulder, and then barked a laugh. “You’ll love the Kempi. Olde worlde charm. That’s ‘world’ with the letter E on the end. You know, ‘old world-ee.’”

“Yup,” said Bond. It didn’t matter to him ⸺ he wouldn’t stay there.

Arnold sliced quickly through the traffic, bullying other cars with the bulk of the Mercedes. A wide highway bisected the city from west to east, called at one time ‘Unter den Linden’ and then ‘Strasse des 17.’ It led through the Brandenburger toward the Royal Palace.

Looking out the window, Arnold made a ‘hmmm’ sound. 

Ackermann half-turned his body and grinned at Bond. He said, “Er spricht kein Deutsch,” with a subtle nod toward Arnold.

“Oh? Ist das so?” Then in English, he asked, “What’s Mr. Arnold’s role in this?”

“Major Arnold,” Ackermann said with emphasis on his rank, “is our official U.S. Army observer. He is to make sure this thing is on the level.”

Arnold laughed again. “Observer. Yeah, that’s me. I watch everything.”

In the distance, a statue in gold glinted in the afternoon sun. Beyond it, in the Soviet sector, Bond could see the flat concourse of the Marx-Engels Platz, which had at one time housed the Schloss Hohenzollern, which had since been leveled.

In German, Bond asked, “So the official U.S. government observer for an operation in Berlin doesn’t, in fact, speak any German?”

In a conversational tone, Ackermann said, “Er ist einer Flachwichser und einer Hosenscheisser und der Scheißkerl _._ Sein Gesicht ist Hackfleisch. Seine Mutter gibt kostenlose die Blasen auf einem Parkplatz in Essen. Er ist ein Arsch mit Ohren _._ ”

To this, Arnold had no reaction other than to nod pleasantly.

“See,” Ackermann finished in German, “he doesn’t speak a word of it.”

Continuing in German, Bond asked, “Christ, why is he here, then?”

“He’s our parts and bits man. We need something, we get it from him.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know,” said Ackermann. “Uhh, guns, grenades, those cute little cameras that look like lighters, knock-out drops, secret radio wristwatches, invisible ink, flying jet packs⸺”

“I get it,” said Bond in English, interrupting him, then switched back to German. “He has no idea what you’re doing, does he.”

“That’s not a problem,” said Ackermann sweetly in English.

“Hey, you guys, can I ask a favor?” asked Arnold suddenly.

“Yes?” said Ackermann.

“Can you pick a language and stick with it? I don’t care which one, but this switching back and forth, it’s giving me a headache.”

They turned towards the Kempi ⸺ the Hotel Adlon Kempinski

# # #

In the presence of Theodor Gabriel Ackermann and Major Kerwin Arnold, Bond checked into the Hotel Adlon Kempinski under the name of James Bond. The hotel was located on Unter Den Linden in the heart of the government quarter, next to the British Embassy and facing the French and American Embassies and in walking distance to the Reich Chancellery. Its sober façade hid the most modern hotel in Germany. Decorated in a mixture of Neo-Baroque and Louis XVI styles, its lobby boasted enormous square marble columns, and its amenities included a variety of places to eat or get a drink, a well-founded library and a music conservatory, a smoking room with an attached cigar shop, a Japanese-themed garden, and numerous ballrooms. It had survived World War Two virtually unscathed, but not the Soviet Occupation, which saw the hotel burn down except for one wing, which remained open.

Checked in, Bond and Ackermann and Arnold retired to acafé on the hotel’s first floor. It consisted of sterile groupings of marble-topped tables, a marble floor, and dark mahogany throughout.

They ordered coffee, and seated themselves around a table so small their elbows knocked. Arnold seemed to have no interest in what was going on, and remained busy eyeing a pair of ladies at the bar who were working their way through cocktails and watching the sparse crowd with a hunter’s intensity.

Ackermann swirled cream and sugar into his coffee, then leaned back in his chair. “You’re not needed here,” he continued in German.

As Bond stirred his own coffee, he murmured, “Oh?”

“I don’t know why they sent you. You are superfluous. You serve no purpose to this operation and in fact I’d call you a hindrance. Stay out of the way, everything will be okay.”

Bond leaned back and regarded Ackermann with a carefully blanked face. “That sounds like a threat.”

“Statement of fact, James. Get in the way and ⸺” he shrugged “⸺ you might get run over. After all, Berlin is a dangerous town.” 

He flashed a smile that showed a lot of elective oral surgery, but that smile had no warmth in it. 

“Do I make myself clear?” Ackermann finished.

“Stay out of the way. Got it. Not complicated.”

Arnold stopped ogling the two ladies long enough to nod to Bond. His grin had about it a domesticated animal’s mindless happiness. 

Bond sipped his coffee and said, “You need me.”

“Why? I know what I’m doing, I’m a professional, and you’ve never done this sort of thing. Your presence here is a distraction at best, a huge liability at worst”

“When he comes over the wire ⸺”

“If,” corrected Ackermann. “We’re a long way from ‘when.’”

“If he comes, someone has to verify that it’s Kronsteen.”

“Christ, we can do that with a photograph.”

“Well, I’m here,” said Bond, pushing away his coffee cup. “I’m in. Our masters agree I am to be here. So I’m here, Theodor. Get used to it.”

Ackermann said to himself, “The hell I get myself into?” He looked away and sipped coffee, looking back at Bond only when he set the cup down. “All right, you’re in. For now. Who’s in charge on the other side?”

Ackermann said, quietly, “Pushkin is our contact.”

“Pushkin? Leonid Pushkin?”

“You know him.”

“He’s in State Security, right? Captain.”

“Major,” Ackermann corrected. “He’ll make it to general at some point, trust me on this.”

Arnold said, to no one in particular, “I remember, right after the war, downtown Berlin. You could get laid and then some with just a Tootsie Roll.”

Bond looked at the two women. He assumed they were prostitutes, lingering over their drinks while, like any good hunters, they waited at the waterhole for their prey to arrive. “Yeah,” said Ackermann, “starvation will do that to you.”

Bond glanced at his Rolex Submariner. “You’re the big cheese and we’re just mice.”

“Ja, du verstehst.”

Bond held Ackermann’s gaze. He’s picked up on the rudeness of Ackermann’s response ⸺ using the familiar ‘du’ as if Bond were a child or a simpleton. He said, “I want to meet with comrade Pushkin.”

“Oh, you do, do you?”

“If I’m in charge of things, then I need to meet him and set up a chain of command. Otherwise, we’re all wasting our time.”

“What if he says no? He’s been dealing with me directly.”

“Does Major Pushkin require a payment for delivering Kronsteen? He wants to be paid, right? I’m the money man.”

Ackermann glared at him as if he were a bug, then in English, he said to Arnold, “Excuse me, I have to make a call.”

He stood and made his way to the back of thecafé.

Arnold turned a placid, languid smile to Bond. “First time in Germany?”

Bond was tempted to point out that for the last hour, he and Ackermann had been fluidly shifting between English and fluent German. Instead, he said, “No. I’ve been here before.”

“Yeah,” said Arnold, “I was here during the War. Look at ‘em. Sheep.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They’re a weak people, the Germans, although they don’t know it. It’s said that every German fears standing in a line facing a desk, and every German dreams of being the man behind the desk. A small, small people.”

“That seems harsh, Mr. Arnold.”

“They’d be destroyed if it weren’t for the sentiment of other nations. The U.S. in particular. We should have reserved a couple-three atom bombs for ‘em.”

"You really despise them, the Germans, don’t you.”

"Oh, they were the world leaders in many things, once, but no longer. It's their own fault, really. Who else but the Germans would pursue a national policy of genocide and invasion, and do it with such congenital inefficiency and incompetence. They all want to be Americans but won’t stop being German.”

Bond said, “You really need to talk these issues out with someone.”

At that, Arnold shrugged.

Ackermann returned and, without sitting down, said, “Do you know the Warschau restaurant?”

“On Stalinallee.”

“Be waiting in front of it tonight at twenty past nine. Not a moment earlier, not a moment later. We’ll pick you up.”

Bond gave him an American-style thumbs up that was hopefully not too sarcastic.

# # #

There was, in fact, no American Embassy in Berlin. By war's end, it had been severely damaged by Allied bombing, and was located in the Soviet Zone when the city was divided. When East Germany came into being, the East German government demolished the ruins of the building, while at the same time, the city of Bonn became the capital of West Germany, and a U.S. Embassy was opened there. 

However, even though the Embassy was elsewhere, the U.S. State Department opened what they called the U.S. Mission Berlin. Located on Clayallee in the Zehlendorf suburb in what was once part of the Luftwaffe’s defense for Berlin, it fell under the authority of the commanding U.S. General in West Berlin, not the authority of the U.S. Embassy, and wielded considerable influence in its own right, by virtue of the occupation authority vested in the U.S. Mission.

Bond checked into the Mission and was ushered into an upstairs office that overlooked Clayallee. A pretty blonde secretary made him wait ten minutes until an intercom buzzed and he was allowed into the office of David Wolkovsky.

“You sure took your sweet time checking in, Bond,” he said as he lowered his newspaper ⸺ Berliner Zeitung, which was published in East Berlin.

“How’re you doing, David,” Bond said by reply. 

Wolkovsky was a large man, the results of a penchant for creamy meals and port and desserts in generous portions. With his high domed forehead and his spade goatee, he bore a resemblance to Vladimir Lenin provided Lenin had a weight problem. Dyes had darkened his hair, and colored lenses changed his eye colour from blue to a dark hazel, but he was still recognizable.

“Could be better, could be better,” he said, stood and they shook hands. “You arrived a day ago.”

“Are there any secrets in Berlin?”

“Not many, no.”

They exchanged a few pleasantries while the secretary brought in a tray of coffee, cups, sugar in cube form, and a small carafe of genuine milk.

David Wolkovsky had studied art history at Harvard, and briefly curated there, but joined the army upon the United States’ entry into World War Two. He achieved the rank of lieutenant-captain, participating in Normandy. As the U.S. Army advanced into Europe and overran Nazi strongholds and stolen artwork came to light, he was moved into the MFAA, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program under the Military Government Sections of the Allied armies, establishedto help protect cultural property captured during the war. It was in this capacity that Wolkovsky and Bond first met, when he was investigating a smuggling operation run between London and Florida.

With the end of the war, Wolkovsky interrogated some of the top Nazi leaders at Spandau, then moved laterally into the OSS and from there into the CIA. He had been there ever since.

While they served themselves coffee ⸺ Wolkovsky put three cubes into his small cup and a healthy dollop of milk ⸺ he asked, “So, James. You’re in Berlin.”

“I’m in Berlin.” He produced a business card.

Wolkovsky glanced at the business card ⸺ at Bond ⸺ at the business card again ⸺ at Bond again. “The Plywood Research Council?”

“It’s a living.”

“Why is the Plywood Research Council meeting with CIA in Berlin?”

“Why indeed.”

“Oh, c’mon, James, don’t play ‘super secret agent’ with me. You want our help, I have to know what you’re involved in.” Off of Bond’s blank look, Wolkovsky added, “I was informed of your impending arrival by your very own people. They asked for the assistance of Section 42.”

The CIA had a program, called ‘PL-110,’ which oversaw the process of bringing in defectors, from initial approach or recruitment to placement, language classes and new identities. Section 42 was that portion that handled defectors and ‘essential aliens’ in the field ⸺ that is, they were the logistics and legwork people.

“They’re lending a hand,” said Bond mildly.

“Getting help from CIA stateside is a Faustian deal.” He sat back in his chair and regarded Bond over the rim of his cup. He squinted as his mind churned through the lagan of his memory. “This is related to that little thing Turkey, isn’t it. That cypher clerk defection.”

“Is it?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, James, it’s unbecoming. You’re back in the field prematurely. So what’s up?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Who’s defecting?” Off of Bond’s blank look, Wolkovsky added, “How can I help if I don’t know what to expect?”

“Tell me,” said Bond, “what do you know?”

“Section 42 says you’re coming. They handle defections. So I’m guessing defection. So who’s defecting?” He laughed and added, “I can’t imagine someone in the Politburo who might have important information on plywood, but who knows? Indulge me.” 

Bond regarded him. “Anything I say stays between us and the four walls?”

“I make no promises,” said Wolkovsky, “but if I have to spill, it’ll be for a damned good reason.”

“Fair enough.” Bond set down his coffee cup. “Someone in the SPECTRE organization.”

Wolkovsky grinned. “That doesn’t sound at all related to plywood.”

“He’s expecting the chop. He wants to come over to our side.”

“There’s a feather in the proverbial cap.” He poured himself another coffee. “Who’s stage-managing it?”

Bond sighed. “In for a penny,” he said to himself. “Two parties. On our side, it's my organization and a freelance sort named Ackermann. On their side, a Major Leonid Pushkin.”

“Ackermann? Theodor Ackermann?”

“The same.”

“By himself?”

“No. That’s why I couldn’t check in until now. He met me at Tempelhof with his CIA guy, a Major Arnold. Kerwin Arnold.”

“Major Kerwin Arnold?” Wolkovsky said. “Oh dear.” He wrote on a square of paper the three names. “Pushkin, who’s he?”

“KGB guy.”

“Oh, great. Useful, that.” He looked up. “Just those three?”

“For now. Why ‘oh dear’ if Arnold’s involved?”

“You don’t know who Arnold is, do you?” Wolkovsky asked, although it wasn’t really a question.

“Just met him,” Bond confessed.

“Son of a wealthy Connecticut family, his father was a diplomat and later built GI-Bill subdivisions. There was some money in coal as well. He attended private school in New Hampshire and then Yale. Joined the Army on graduating, was moved to Intelligence, was linked up with some Resistance groups. Wounded, became a first looie, some awards, I forgot which. At war’s end, he marries a socialite named Penobscott. Teresa or Terry or something. Through her, he’s hired as an aide to Harold Stassen for the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, and in 1947, was part of the United World Federalists, which he helped organize.”

“Sounds like a Boy Scout.”

“Doesn’t he. He and Teresa-or-Terry-or-whatever divorced in 1948 and then she died in a hit-and-run the following year. That same year, Kerwin Arnold comes to work for the CIA. Eventually, he’s in this or that banana republic, plotting its overthrow. FBI raises a stink over him, something about a security risk, and he quits. Then, that same month, he turns up in Berlin freelancing for whoever pays enough.”

“You know a lot about him.”

“I’m paid to be curious about people. Especially people who are outside our regular channels but work with us anyway.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I do not, but then again, ours is a business that precludes trust.”

They sat for a moment in silence, then Wolkovsky asked, “Anything else that I can do for you?”

“How much support can I ask for?”

“Well, that depends. You want a tunnel dug through downtown Berlin, no. You want a guy whacked, well maybe, but you must have the right forms. Anything else, contact me and we’ll talk.”

“How do I get in touch with you, in such a way that it doesn’t involve coming to the mission?”

Wolkovsky produced a business card from inside his desk, which he passed to Bond as if presenting the keys to the city.

He glanced at it. “‘Trade Liaison?’”

“Says the man from the Plywood Research Council.”

“Touché. Thanks, David.”

“Do me a favor,” Wolkovsky said. “We’re into some sensitive stuff here. Biggest station in Europe, believe it or not. Whatever you do, don’t make a mess.”

“I’ll do my best.”


	3. Aristarkhov

Stalinallee was born while East and West Berlin were coalescing out of the Allied zones, and on Stalin’s seventieth birthday, just seventy-five days after the founding of the DDR, the Große Frankfurter Straße and the Frankfurter Allee were renamed in his honor. The street had been largely destroyed during the bombing campaigns of the Second World War, and they were a sorry sight of half-leveled buildings and mounds of grey-brown rubble. An ideal boulevard that showed the world just what Socialism could be would have to be constructed anew.

And it was ⸺ thirty-eight million bricks were picked out of the ruins of the city in four million man-hours of voluntary work, cleaned and shaped and re-used. The housing units lining Stalinallee were top of the line, with elevators and heat and running water, and Soviet-influenced architecture. They were monumental and overpowering in their grandeur, billed as ‘Worker’s Palaces,’ and the street itself was of grand proportion ⸺ almost three hundred feet wide and two miles long, and lined with the massive eight-storey buildings designed in the socialist classicism ‘wedding-cake’ style of the Soviet Union, covered by architectural ceramics. At each end were dual towers, at Frankfurter Tor and Strausberger Platz, with a bronze statue of that street’s namesake watching all benevolently.

It was ironic that Stalinallee, as an example of the resolution and conviction of socialism, had become a shopping mecca. It housed a good-quality hotel, numerous shops and bookstores, restaurants andcafés. 

Lights winked under the trees, and a few people danced between the striped parasols to gramophonic music. 

‘Warschau’ was spelled in lights, and directly at nine-twenty Bond stood in front of it.

The Mercedes-Benz 300 pulled up and the passenger door swung out. He peeked in to confirm that it was Ackermann behind the wheel.

“Shall we?” Ackermann asked.

Bond climbed in. “No Major Arnold?”

“Just us. Put it on.”

“Put what on?” And immediately, Bond found a paper bag in the foot well. “This?”

Ackermann injected them into the arterial that was Stalinallee. “Put it on.”

“The bag?”

“What’s inside.”

Bond pulled it out ⸺ a cotton pillow-case, dyed black. “Put it on.”

“Why?”

“Because I am not supposed to allow you to know where we’re going?”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

He did not.

“You know where he lives, right ⸺ well, where we’re meeting. What’s to keep you from telling where it is?”

“Just put it on.”

“It’s stupid.”

“James, please?”

“Oh, all right.” Bond tugged the improvised hood over his head. Through the cloth, he said, “Could you do me a favor?”

“Possibly.”

“Introduce me as Neydermeier. Melvin Neydermeier.”

“Now you're kidding me, right?”

“Wish that I were.”

“All right. So from now on, you’re Melvin Neydermeier ⸺ Jesus.” He shook his head sadly.

Bond sat placidly while Ackermann drove. It was mostly straightaways, with few turns.

While Bond sat, unable to see, he reflected on what he knew about Pushkin.

A wife ⸺ a son ⸺ a career that began in the Spanish Civil War where he committed the occasional assassination. He wormed his way into P.O.U.M. ⸺ the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ⸺ and reported back to Moscow as well as to Communist Intelligence in Spain. He had served as the right hand man to the famous Andreas Nin and , according to rumor, murdered Nin under orders. From then on, he progressed slowly but straight up the ladder of power, weathering restructurings and purges, surviving setbacks and even wars, in part because he forged no allegiances and joined no factions.

Which, reflected Bond, was much of the reason for his success. He was a lone operator, but never a lonely one. 

As the Mercedes slowed, Rutheford said, “All right, you can take off your mask.” 

They came to a stop outside a large pretend-Tudor house. It was dated, Bond guessed, from the 1920s and at the very tail end of the Tudor revival period. It had dozens of those inorganic details indicative of a style imitated. High-peaked and square in shape, its walls were of stained stucco roughened with capricious finger-swirls between lightly-scored wooden beams that could not possibly bear weight. In the center of the lawn was a formal quatrefoil pond, its still water green with algae. A forest seemed to be encroaching upon the property, still at a distance but close enough that Bond could hear trees rub as they moved.

It was not a pretty house, although it had that sense of complacency that middle-class burgomeisters breathe into the structure of a house along with the echo of dinner bells and the sweet reek of cigar smoke. Bond figured it was a treffen ⸺ not necessarily a KGB safe house, but at least a neutral place where people could meet.

Ackermann rang the bell and a woman opened the door. She glared at them for the inconvenience they caused her by forcing her to answer the door.

“Herr Pushkin?” Ackermann inquired. He presented her with his card. She accepted it as if it were deposited by a bird. Bond was struck by her hatchet face, her stern eyes, the permanent sneer built into her face. She wore a practical pantsuit in beige and her blonde hair was bobbed short.

She said one word ⸺ “Wait” ⸺ and disappeared into the house, closing the door on them.

“Welcoming,” Bond observed.

The door opened a moment later, fully. The woman stood aside and gestured them in without a word.

She led them through a dimly lit hall with walls of grotesque stucco, where stood a vast hall stand with inlaid ivory, then into a drawing room done up with a gold-and-silver wallpaper. “Here,” she said, and then, “Wait,” and then she departed.

Ackermann looked as uncomfortable as Bond felt. The drawing room had that stuffy lack of comfort that one often encounters in German bourgeois homes. It was crowded with knick-knacks in porcelain and zinc, with lunging aspidistras in a variety of pots, fussy lace curtains layered over sheers, and antimacassars under brass-and-ceramic lamps and Chinese vases. A cocktail cabinet pretended to be a hemisphere of the world. 

Bond sucked in his breath at the decor. “This is… I genuinely have no words.”

“Sush, Melvin.”

They stood in awkward silence, afraid to touch anything, afraid to sit on the uncomfortable-looking sofa.

Then Pushkin pushed through a door. “I’m sorry for the wait,” he said, “I was on a call.”

“That’s fine,” said Ackermann, who thrust his hand at the Russian as though it contained a fencing foil. “How are you?”

“Fine, fine,” he said in a distracted fashion. He was as Bond had surmised ⸺ a big-boned man in his mid-forties with hair cropped close to the skull and a complexion worthy of a drowning victim pulled from the Danube. Out of place with his crude, almost primordial appearance, he wore a red silk smoking-jacket with gold tracing on the lapels over black silk pyjama trousers. It was as though he’d ordered from the Hugh Hefner Collection.

Ackermann continued, “This is Herr Neydermeier, Melvin P. Neydermeier,” and gestured. 

“Very Good. What does the ‘P’ stand for?”

“‘Patience,’” Bond replied, “is my middle name.”

Pushkin roared with laughter, then asked, “What will you drink?” His voice was a deep basso that rumbled in the back of his lungs.

“Before we progress,” said Bond in German, “I’d like to see your ID card.”

Ackermann said in a harsh whisper, “Are you serious?”

But Pushkin, all smiles, extracted his wallet from a pocket of his smoking jacket. “Of course, Herr Neydermeier. And I would like to see yours as well.” As he spoke, he peeled loose a stiff white card with a photo affixed to it and two rubber stamps, the kind that all Soviet citizens carry when abroad.

Bond presented his passport in exchange.

He pretended to work through the Cyrillic script with difficulty while Pushkin inspected his fake passport. “This says your name is Aristarkhov.”

The severe-faced woman brought in a tray of tiny glasses and a bottle of vodka frosted with condensation. She withdrew after she set the tray down. 

As he passed back the passport, Pushkin said, “A person with your name passed through Tempelhof earlier today.” He smiled again. “Is that your name?”

“Is Aristarkhov yours?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ackermann blanch.

Pushkin’s grin widened. “We are both in a business that demands lying.” He broke the wax on the vodka and off-handedly asked, “Does Herr Neydermeier have the authority to negotiate?”

Ackermann said, “That’s why he’s here. Anything he promises will be honored. I guarantee it.”

The bottle of vodka hovered poised over the small shotglasses. “What will you pay me for defecting?” Pushkin asked. Vodka splashed into three of the glasses.

“You?” Bond frowned at Ackermann, then said to Pushkin, “I thought you communists were above all that.”

Pushkin’s expression was the sort that a mouse sees just before the snake strikes. “What will you pay?”

“Well, there are numerous factors in that decision. If you share information, it would be worth around one hundred to one hundred and seventy-five kay, give or take. No information, probably closer to eighty-five kay at best. This is, of course, dispersed over a seven-year period, which is standard for debriefing. There would be a housing allowance, depending on where they put you, as housing costs vary widely between locations. A house in Cardiff rents for a lot less than a house in London. Then there’s a grocery allowance, spouse support, pet allowances ⸺”

“You are making the fun of me, yes?” 

“I’m simply answering your question.” Both he and Ackermann had picked up their glasses.

Pushkin said, “Prost _,_ ” and then downed his shot of vodka. His voice and face were carefully neutral ⸺ he didn’t know if Bond was the money-man or not, or if Bond was making fun of him, and settled the issue by pouring himself another shot.

“For Christ’s sake,” Ackermann murmured to himself.

Pushkin said, “Prost” again and threw back his shot of vodka. As he lowered his arm, he stared at Bond in earnest. “I am no capitalist.”

“Sorry,” said Bond, “it was that demand for money that had fooled me. Seemed awfully capitalistic to me.”

Pushkin and Ackermann exchanged glances ⸺ the Russian’s was flat and flinty, while Ackermann plastered a sickly smile on his face.

“Try to understand,” said Pushkin to Bond, “I am sincere. I wish to come over as well.”

“You,” said Bond, who tried not to laugh. “You’re coming over too? Is that right? With Kronsteen, that makes this a two-for-one deal, doesn’t it.” 

Pushkin stared at him blankly.

Bond looked at Ackermann, then shook his head. “I believed you until this moment.” To Pushkin, he added, “You’re no more defecting than I’m a pretty Chinese girl.”

Ackermann said, “For Christ’s sake, Neydermeier. Why’d you bother coming to Berlin if you’re going to muck up this whole thing?”

Bond’s response was to pointedly check his watch. 

Pushkin and Ackermann again looked at each other. Without saying anything, Pushkin poured another trio of shots. The three of them drank in silence.

Pushkin asked, “For a long time I have considered coming over.”

“You have.” Bond’s tone was neutral, bordering on broad sarcasm.

“It’s not a matter of politics,” Pushkin said. “I am an avid communist. Always have been. But as I get older, I see….” His voice trailed off as he sought the right word “... advantages to your system.”

“You have a want for creature comfort and the security of possessions.”

“A man wants a handful of dirt, and to know that it’s his own handful of dirt, Herr Neydermeier.” He smiled, showing large yellow teeth. “Those comforts that you take for granted, I want them for my own children.”

“Sure, who wouldn’t.”

“You’re interested in Kronsteen.” He whistled as the enormity of it. “He’s the so-called ‘big fish,’ yes?”

“Is he in Berlin?”

“Neydermeier,” said Ackermann in a warning tone. 

“Kronsteen wants to come west. Prost!” Pushkin slammed back another vodka. “He wants to defect. He needs your protection.”

“How do you know?” Bond asked.

“I know,” said Pushkin. “I just know.”

Ackermann said, “Aristarkhov is part of the apparatus that monitors their cypher clerks, and has specific oversight on Romanova. He has direct knowledge of Kronsteen. If there’s anybody who knows what Kronsteen is thinking, it’s Aristarkhov.” He gave a small, embarrassed cough. “And I told Herr Aristarkhov that Kronsteen would be worth about eighty thousand dollars to us.”

“Did you?” Bond said in a flat monotone voice. “That was generous of you.”

Pushkin poured out vodka all around, downed his own with a “Prostand poured a replacement. 

Bond offered his shotglass to Pushkin. “Well, it’s been nice talking to you. I came a long way for a couple shots of vodka, I suppose.”

“Neydermeier,” said Ackermann again in a warning voice.

“Don’t worry, I’ll figure some way to report this so it won’t reflect too badly on you.” To Pushkin, he added, “I wish you had something that I want to buy.”

Pushkin again showed his yellow teeth. “I understand, Herr Neydermeier. You do not believe me.”

“I come here to determine whether or not Kronsteen is a genuine defector, and here I have you ⸺ you ⸺ telling me that you want to defect. It’s embarrassing, it’s so obvious.”

“I think I can explain it best with a story. Joseph Stalin is walking through a small town when he spies a little girl sitting in the doorway of a house. He smiles at her and says, ‘Malen'kaya devochka, do you know who I am?’ The little girl stares at him blankly and shakes her head. Stalin says, ‘Really, you don’t know? I'm the one who has given you everything you have.’ The little girl's face lights up, and she runs into the house shouting, ‘Mamochki! Mamochki! Uncle Ivan is home from America!’”

There was laughter all around, although Bond didn’t quite track how this story explained why Pushkin would want to defect.

Pushkin, wiping a pretend tear from his eye, said, “Only this morning, my people arrested a man for repeating that joke.” He roared again with renewed laughter.

In a loud whisper, meant to be heard, Ackermann asked, “Is he serious?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Drink, drink,” Pushkin urged them.

Bond said, “Here’s my response to your story. It’s in the form of a toast.” He held up his shotglass and said, “Here’s to my wife and to my mistress. May they never meet.”

Again, Pushkin roared with laughter. “I will use that!” he declared. “We shall be the best of friends!”

“Then let us stop this nonsense,” said Bond. “We will do better if we cooperate.” 

Pushkin again smiled with snake-like charm. “Kronsteen is not important to us. He came into our orbit, if you will, against his will.”

“Having a death threat over your head will do that to you.” Bond exhaled noisily. “You want to sell us Kronsteen as a little bit of private enterprise. Because he’s of no use to you.”

Pushkin looked to Ackermann, who just shrugged.

“All I want is to live the rest of my life in peace and comfort. I am getting old. Younger men in our security service look at my job with envy. They will….” At this, Pushkin's words trailed off, and he stared out of the lace-covered windows as if divining a message from God. Finally, he said, “I do not need much. A small pension. A few modest luxuries ⸺ good tobacco, a little vodka now and again.”

“With your job,” Bond said, “you should be in the lap of luxury.”

“Others want my job,” he said. “Some on my staff have college degrees. Their minds are quick whereas mine is slow. They have the energy to work day and night where I no longer have the energy to do so.” He shrugged. “This is why I decided to come west.”

Bond asked, “What about your wife and family? Will they come?”

“My wife died of cholera in the Great Patriotic War. My only son hasn’t spoken to me in years.”

Bond shook his head. “Your wife is alive and well. Your son is a fourth-year student at the Leningrad Institute of Finance and Economics, where his studies are focused on European intra-bank exchanges. You had a daughter who died in childhood ⸺”

“That’s enough,” he said, and raised a hand. “Neydermeier,” he said slowly. “I believe you have me at a disadvantage.”

“‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.’”

“Sun Tzu?”

“Yes. Very good.”

“You are knowledgeable.”

“To quote Marshal Suvorov, ‘Train hard, fight easy.’”

Pushkin laughed, and then poured another vodka into his shotglass. “We shall be friends, Herr Neydermeier, which is of course not your name either! Prost!”

They downed vodka, and leaning back, Pushkin said, “Americans are generous, whereas Russians are not. They give nuclear weapons and capitalism and trade and tanks and ships. But we do not give other nations such gifts. We have very little money, and fewer guns. What we give other nations is encouragement. Ideas. No guns can fight an idea. No nuclear weapon can replace one.”

“And what do the British give?”

“Culture,” Pushkin said, and roared again with laughter. He was a very jolly man.

Pushkin put aside his shotglass and made his way across to a reproduction Queen Anne bureau. Despite the number of shots he had imbibed, his motions were fluid.

While fishing through a ring of keys, he said, “There is a Buddhist saying. ‘A kind man who makes good use of wealth is rightly said to possess a great treasure, but the miser who hoards his riches will have no profit.’” He found the key he wanted and unlocked the bureau.

“There’s a Chinese saying. ‘There are two perfect men, good and true, in this world. One is dead and the other is unborn.’”

Pushkin roared yet again, even as he groped around inside the desk. “I like that, my friend, I will expropriate it as well! Ahh, I learn so much from my new friends.”

Pushkin turned, and in his hands was a flat buff-colored folder. He presented it to Bond.

“What’s this?” Cyrillic covered its tab and annotated its cover.

Pushkin gestured that Bond was to open it.

He did. 

Stapled inside the cover was an NSDAP identification photo of Tov Kronsteen, circa 1940 ⸺ a man of about twenty-five years, dark-haired, round-faced, with flat emotionless eyes and a hesitant brush of a moustache. 

Bond asked, “What’s this?”

Ackermann said, “Kronsteen’s membership in the Nazi Party.”

“Interesting,” said Bond. “And since we’re all honest now, tell me. Defection. You don’t really want to defect, do you?”

“Of course not.” Pushkin shook his head at the idea of it. “I was ordered to ‘dangle’ that and see what your reaction would be. I told them that you would not believe, and I was right.” He roared again. “I work for idiots! I told them they would not believe me!”

Bond smiled.

Pushkin continued, “I could no more live in the west than you could live in the bottom of the Aral Sea, my new friend. I would rather slit my throat than defect and live under your capitalist system. However ⸺” he stuck up a finger “⸺ the offer for Kronsteen is genuine. I need the money.”

“Ahh,” said Bond with a sad sigh, “if only it were that easy. But since we’re all being so honest, I have to tell you. I don’t see why he’d defect. Kronsteen knows the reach that SPECTRE has. He knows that, in our arms, he’s not safe. Nor would he be safe with your organization, or any organization. He’d be a fool to defect. He’d do much better staying in hiding.”

“A man can hide for only so long,” Pushkin said.

“Why did he come to you?” Bond asked. “He’s looking to defect, why are you involved?”

“He came to me because he knew I was involved in the cryptographic section. He actually hoped to come to Russia, but my people are short-sighted. They do not see the value of keeping him. They recognize SPECTRE as a tool in their arsenal, but not as the threat that it really is. So I thought perhaps the West might want him. So I contacted your Paris office. And now I can make a little money for my old age.”

Ackermann seized the shotglasses and splashed vodka into them. His expression demanded to know what the hell Bond was up to.

“So,” said the Russian, “where are we?”

“I would say that we’re interested.”

He held up his shotglass and said, “Prost!”


	4. Russian Aftermath

Bond waited with patience while M read through the folder. He guessed that M had already read the report, and in fact assimilated it, but was borrowing time by pretending to re-read so that he could gather his thoughts. He puffed absently on his pipe as he did so.

With deliberate motion, he depressed the button on his intercom. “Miss Moneypenny, please ask Q Branch to send up one of their sketch artists.”

With that, his fingers spread wide on the report’s cover page, he looked up at Bond. “Your thoughts?”

“I thought I was clear in the report, sir,” he said.

“It’s fascinating reading, 007, but what are your impressions?”

“Well, the whole ‘Puskin-wants-to-defect’ angle was meant either as a bad joke or a good test.”

“Test?”

“If we were serious about him defecting ⸺ that is, if we had accepted it at face value ⸺ he would have figured that we were not who we claimed we are.”

“You claimed to be Melvin P. Neydermeier, did you not?”

“And he said he was Aristarkhov. What I mean is, he might have felt we were from a more amateur organization. I think by not accepting the defection, we proved we were valid buyers.”

“And is he selling?”

“Yes, he is. I believe that he is.”

M’s fingertips drummed on the cover page. “I think the same thing. The piece of information that he provided about Kronsteen, his membership paper, were validated. He had been a member up through the end of the war.”

“A tiny piece of the puzzle falls into place.”

“Something like that.”

The intercom buzzed. “Sir, a representative of Q Branch is here.”

“Send him in.”

Two people passed through the leather-covered inner door.

The girl looked as though she’d only just graduated from school, but to be allowed into the hallowed precincts occupied by M she must be either older than she appeared or abundantly qualified. She had blonde hair that had been put into a permanent wave, which had reached its half-life and gave her hair a charming artful messiness. A white blouse accented her trim lines, as did her Tartan skirt exemplify her slim waist. She pressed a large sketch patch to her bosom and carried a small canvas bag.

Q, the master behind Q Branch, followed her in.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Grenier. And Q?”

Q wore his standard-issue plaid three-piece, which fit his lanky frame like a too large sack. His white hair was in its customary bird’s-nest disarray. “Thought I’d pop by, make sure things were running smoothly.”

“007 was going to describe someone and we’d have Miss Grenier make a sketch. Much like the police do.” M’s tone was acerbic.

“Yes,” said Q mildly, “and I wouldn’t trust Miss Grenier alone with Bond for a Scottish minute.”

“Q,,” said Bond disapprovingly, “would I ⸺”

“Yes, you bloody well would,” Q interrupted him.

Miss Grenier settled into the other available green chair. “This’ll take a little time, commander. We’ll start with the face shape....”

Ninety minutes later, Miss Grenier had a fair approximation, aided by Bond’s superior observational skills and the fact that Q was present to help keep things on track. The head of Research and Development watched quietly, and M puttered about the office, conferring on occasion with Moneypenny in her antechamber.

“Here you are, sir,” Miss Grenier said to Q, who examined it through a pair of horn-rimmed reading glasses.

He picked up a phone on M’s desk and dialled an internal number. “I want to run an FR trace,” he said. “Pay attention.” He cleared his throat. “Woman, probably Russian or related intelligence organ. Age approximately thirty-five. Height one-six-eight centimeter weight five-two kilogram. No visible distinguishing marks. Eyes - three, colour green ⸺ nose - six ⸺ face shape - four ⸺ jaw line - three ⸺ mouth - five ⸺ ears - four ⸺ forehead - four ⸺ cheekbones - one. Did you get all that?”

Satisfied, he hung up.

Bond watched in something akin to amazement.

Q said, “A variation on  Le système bertillonage . The numbers represent a specific value by which we have organized our visual files. It would work better if we ever got funding for a computer to do the sorting, and of course this wouldn’t work in a large set of faces like the London court system, but for the rather narrow fraternity within intelligence, we should do fairly well.”

“About how long will it take?”

“Oh, less than a day, I should imagine.”

Bond, realizing that he was done, made his good-byes to Q and Miss Grenier.

M was standing over Moneypenny’s desk when he came out. “007,” he said, “one more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“We’re opening a file on this. There is interest upstairs, and it now has operational status.” He glanced through reading glasses at the folder in his hand. As he headed back into his office, he added, “Operation Cassowary.”

“Thank you, sir.”

When the door closed, Moneypenny added, “Good name.”

“Oh?”

“Cassowaries, they’re flightless birds. Trapped on tiny islands in the South Pacific. But extremely dangerous when provoked.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

# # #

In six hours, Bond found himself back in Berlin, seated in the lobby of the Kempi perusing Bild. It had coverage about King Constantine II’s marriage to Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, but Bond’s attention was focused on the entrance.

At four-thirty precisely, Major Kerwin Arnold bounded in off the street and gave him a lopsided grin. “Hiya!” 

“You left a message that we’re to meet.”

“Come with me, kiddo, we got an appointment.”

Bond followed Arnold out the door to his Mercedes, where he had parked at the curb. Arnold gestured to the passenger-side door as he strode around to the driver’s side. “Get in.”

“Where’re we going?”

“Get in.”

Bond felt a distinct lack of his gun.

The Mercedes squealed away from the curb before his door was closed.

Bond had opted for his suit, but Arnold wore slacks and a polo shirt. “Where’re we going? Do I have to wear a hood?”

Arnold’s grin never faded. “It’s in the trunk. You can put it on if you want, if it’ll make you feel more comfortable.”

“No, I’m good. But thank you.”

“You hungry?” said Arnold. “We can stop for a snack if you’re hungry.”

“I’m good,” said Bond. 

Very soon they exited Berlin. As the city and its environs thinned, the rural charm of Brandenburg appeared. This region encircling Berlin offered considerable natural charm, with small farms and hamlets dotting a bucolic landscape and scenic lakelands amid stout German forests. 

As they drove, Arnold babbled on about his time in the OSS ⸺ muddling through the Second World War, relying largely on the French Résistance and its organization. He told about what was his biggest success, blowing up bridges in the path of the advancing Allied armies, a bit of poor planning that was nonetheless superbly executed. It was he who personally uncovered a Swiss plot to attack Italy.

For most of it, Bond tuned out Arnold’s voice, watching the scenery flow past. Traffic thinned, and for long stretches the Mercedes was alone on the road.

A little after ten, they pulled into the Berlin Golf Club. 

Situated in the Dauerwald Forest, a region of idyllic, old-growth woodlands, it was a 27-hole club ⸺ eighteen and nine ⸺ placed where the courses could utilize the natural topography of low, rolling hills.

As Arnold parked, he said, “James, Ackermann asked me to ask you for a favor.”

“Which is?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

“I make no promises.”

The clubhouse had a lot of charm to it ⸺ it had been founded in the last century by British and American diplomats, later became a favorite refuge for overworked Nazis, and then for Allied military leaders after the war. Arnold led Bond through the clubhouse and through French doors and onto the course. A classic parkland layout, its tight, tree-lined holes were routed in an out-and-back fashion around a gently undulating landscape of subtle elevation changes. 

Bond, in his suit and flat Italian leather shoes, felt miserable.

“Now look,” said Arnold as he led Bond across the greens, “here’s the lay-out. Pushkin gets Kronsteen into Berlin, SPECTRE gonna go ape-shit. So we gotta spirit him out. That’s these guys.”

“Who’re these guys?”

“They’re with the Agency.”

“CIA?”

“Not William Morris.” Arnold laughed at his own joke. “These guys are Section 42. Part of the Office of Special Operations. They handle defections and stuff”

“Then what the hell are we doing in all this? Sounds like the CIA has everything under control.”

“I think Ackermann tole you that when you first met.” He raised his hands. “Me, I’m just the toolman. I get the equipment, I hook things up.”

“So we’re gonna entrust our precious cargo to a group of cowboys?”

“Not cowboys, James. CIA.”

“Who’s paying for this?”

Arnold was silent, other than to give Bond a meaningful look.

“I’ve already got Pushkin asking for money, more money promised to Kronsteen. And now we’re contracting Kronsteen’s removal? Is that right?”

“You’re the money man,” Arnold responded, “you said so yourself. So you make it happen.”

Bond walked on in sullen silence.

They reached the third hole, a long ovoid surrounded on all sides by a dense darkness of wood and shrub, with a pair of glistening white sand traps. The woods looked like the sort of place where a troll might stroll out, club over one shoulder.

A trio of two men and a woman were at play. They were dressed as you’d expect golfers to dress ⸺ badly ⸺ and they didn’t seem to take the game too seriously. 

The eldest of the three was a pot-bellied man in checkered slacks and a polo shirt in hot pink. An enormous watch crusted in gold adorned one wrist, and aviator glasses covered his face. Given the sparse hair trailing out of the hat, Bond figured he was balding. 

A young man in beige and canary yellow held the flag, while a young woman in a tartan skirt with a matching tam o’shanter on her chestnut hair leaned against the clubs, which were supported in their own wheeled metal frames.

Pot-Bellied gripped his driver loosely while he made micro-adjustments to the orientation of the head versus the ball. He was aware of Arnold and Bond, but pretended not to see them. He spoke to his ball as he lined up his shot. “For Germany and for your American South, the experience of war, defeat, and the guilt that comes with losing, they’ve all scarred the populace.”

Beige responded, “Scarred in what way?” He spoke in a clear Southern accent. He too pretended not to notice their arrival.

“They have a fascination with that experience that transcends academic interest and seems to be more than a purely factual examination of the past. It is more an obsession.” Bond was mildly surprised that he spoke in a British ‘public school’ accent. “It is an obsession is born of desperation.”

Beige asked, “An obsession with what?” His tone suggested that he didn’t care too much.

Pot-Bellied tightened his grip, drew back the driver, and let have it. The ball snicked clean off its tee and arked toward the distant flag. 

As he watched, Pot-Bellied said to Beige, “Both the German and the Southern Gentleman have a common desire to justify their historical personae, if you will, both to the larger world and to themselves. It’s as if their respective pasts are critical components of their identities, where in fact it makes no difference.”

Bond noticed that the woman with them rolled her eyes, glancing first at Arnold and then at Bond.

“If you say so,” said Beige, ever the agreeable fellow.

But Pot-Bellied was on a roll. While Beige lined up his shot, he continued. “Both the German and the American Southerner have a desire to justify their  weltanschauung . Not to the world, but to themselves. They seek self-clarity. They wish to use their violent pasts to explain their contemporary identities, yet they are unaware of the problematical character of their history.” He stopped when Beige unleashed his shot, turned and regarded Bond and Major Arnold. “What do you think?”

Arnold opened his mouth, but Bond spoke first. “The Germans make better pretzels than the Southerners. That’s about all I know.”

The man laughed. As it wound down, he said, “So you need our help.”

Kerwin Arnold said, “James, this is Godfrey Coombes ⸺” indicating Pot-Bellied “⸺ and Jebediah Devereaux ⸺” indicating Beige. 

Hellos were exchanged. Devereaux put out a hand to Bond, being closest, and said, “Jebediah Beauregarde Devereaux IV. Of the Charleston River Devereauxs, of course.”

“Of course.” It was like shaking a warmed fish.

Coombes offered a single fast pump. He started off down the fairway toward his ball. “This is par four,” he declared, “and I aim to come in under that.”

Quietly, Bond said to Arnold, “Who the hell are these yabbos?”

“They’re getting Kronsteen out of Germany,” Arnold whispered back. “They’re logistics. Don’t be a dick.”

The five started off across the green stretch, surrounded by the ominous trees. Devereaux took over rolling the bags, freeing up the brunette. 

She made her way over to Bond and Arnold. “Hi. They’re rude. I’m Shiri.” She extended a hand.

Bond introduced himself with a curt shake, and Arnold said a cheery ‘hello.’

Bond opened his mouth to speak to her, but from ahead, Coombes repeated, “So you need us to help you.” He said it in such a way that it carried a thin veil of insult.

Devereaux was more agreeable ⸺ the better salesman. “Whatever you need, we can do it.”

Bond exchanged another glance with Arnold ⸺ he wasn’t liking this, and it was getting worse by the minute.

Devereaux added, “What do you need done?”

Bond said, “We need something moved.”

“Very well,” said Coombes from ahead of the bunch. “Place of origin?”

Bond asked, “Wait, what?”

Arnold answered, “We’ll arrange that as you prefer.”

“Wait wait wait,” said Bond, coming to a stop. “I’m feeling left out of all this. Who are you people and what is your involvement in our business?”

Devereaux and Shiri had stopped, but Coombes toddled on a few steps before he realized they’d come to a halt. “You don’t know who we are?”

To answer, Bond spread his hands in a gesture of abject no-understanding.

Devereaux said, “We are the only people in Berlin who get things done.”

“And ‘who are the only people et cetera et cetera?”

The woman Shiri said, “You might know us as Section 42.”

Arnold said, “I told you, they’re highly recommended. Our package is delivered to us in Berlin.” He looked at Devereaux and said again, “In Berlin.”

“Got it.”

“There’ll be heat.” To Bond, he said, “They get the package out of Berlin safe and sound.”

Coombes said, “Berlin.”

“Yes, sirree.”

“Excellent.” He turned and started on toward his ball again. “Where to?”

“Out of Germany. Final destination to be determined.”

Bond added, “Might be stateside.”

“How big is the package?”

“Human.”

If this was shocking, Coombes showed no reaction. “Willing or unwilling?”

Arnold said, “Dunno.”

“Will the package be conscious?”

“If willing, conscious. If unwilling, unconscious.”

“I assume there will be an exchange, yes?”

Bond said, “Yes.”

“We’ll provide you with a list of our preferred depositories. Miss Ritchfield?”

Shiri made a noise like she’d heard.

Bond said, “We want to stay clear of Soviet territory as much as possible. Things may heat up fast.”

Devereaux said, “Sometimes it’s best to put the package on ice and let things cool off.”

“That might not be an option.”

“Not necessarily in Berlin,” he said. “We may not be able to get the package clear of Germany immediately.”

“Immediate is our first choice,” said Bond.

“Immediate is everyone’s first choice.”

Coombes said, “We need at least forty-eight hours’ notice.”

“That’s A-okay,” said Arnold. 

“To contact us, we will provide you a phone number. You call it and the person who answers will provide you with another number to call. That number changes all the time.”

“What about your contact number?”

Coombes said, “It changes periodically. Check with us every two weeks.”

“How do I do that?” Bond asked.

“We’ll give you a number.”

Devereaux asked, “Do you have any other questions?”

“How are you moving him?”

“We’ll determine that when the time comes.”

Arnold said, “That’s why they get the big bucks, kiddo. They arrange all sorts of movements.”

They’d reached Coombes’ ball. He stopped and studied it, and without looking up, he said, “For the purposes of identification, you will be known as ‘Mr. Green.’ Mr. Ackermann will be ‘Mr. Brown.’ Mr. Arnold will be ‘Mr. White.’”

“Mr. White?” Arnold said.

Coombes said, “The package shall be referred to as ‘lemon.’ It will be ‘Mr. Lemon’ if it is a man, or a ‘bushel of lemons’ if it is an object. We will be ‘Palette.’ This operation will be known as ‘Abstract.’”

Shiri asked, “Did you get all that?”

“Amazingly, I did.”

Devereaux said, “So if that’s all….” His voice trailed off.

“Yes,” said Bond. He could take a hint.

# # #

When he returned to the Kempi, Bond learned that he had a message:

Call your office

He booked a long distance call, and was satisfied that it went through relatively quickly. “James,” said Moneypenny. “Are you enjoying your time with our neighbors to the north?”

“On the whole, I’d rather be in Bermuda.”

“Perhaps we can arrange something,” she said with a laugh which ended suddenly. “I don’t know if this is alarming or not, but we believe we have a ‘hit,’ as it were, on your mystery woman.” 

“Alarming?”

“We have a ninety-percent-probability that she is a Miss Irina Valentina Tarasovna.”

“There’s a name,” said Bond

“She works for the Thirteenth Department.” 

Bond was quiet for a moment. The Thirteenth Department of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB typically acted as their assassination unit. 

Moneypenny continued, “Miss Tarasovna is attached, in unclear ways, to the death of Marceli Nowotko in Poland and Camillo Berneri in Spain. Should be noted that she’s much older than she appears to be ⸺ closer to fifty.”

“Why would a KGB active be with Pushkin?” Bond asked, more for himself.

“It adds a complication,” Moneypenny agreed. “Let’s not forget that she knows what you look like.”

“Thanks,” said Bond. “I feel warm and fuzzy knowing that.”


	5. Invitation to the Dance

Ackermann carried himself like an advertisement for a Charles-Atlas-like home course in self-improvement. His muscles rippled under his well-cut lightweight wool suits, and he had the economy of motion that speaks to athleticism and natural strength. His socks were silk and his shoes were hand-made in Jermyn Street. He spoke in idiom with consummate skill, and when he swore it was in a calm and studied fashion, and never with frustration or rage. If you scraped the surface of Theodor Ackermann, you would find that he was gold as deep down as you dug.

But in the eyes of some men, you sometimes can see the frightened child inside staring out, and every once in a while Bond felt that he saw that in Ackermann, what looked like a fleeting glimpse of a man two-thirds of the way toward a panic attack. 

Bond followed Ackermann into the Hilton. The tiny metal studs in his shoes made a rhythm of precise ticks across the marble. Discreetly shaded light fell across the oiled rubber plants and shone on the gold enamel of the name badge on the girl in the newspaper stand, where they had available the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, and The Times, as well as other European and German papers, Belgian chocolates, Kodak film, and colored postcards of the Berlin Wall. They passed through the lobby and into the bar, where it was too dark to read the price-list and the piano player groped his way through the keys.

“So what are your thoughts on all of this?” Ackermann asked.

“Thoughts on what?”

“Lemon,” he said.

“Good so far,” Bond said, although he wasn’t sure. He surveyed the bar, noting a peculiar mix of what he assumed were working girls ⸺ Strichmädchen, or ‘line girls,’ a particularly crass slang term.

Ackermann sniffed at his bourbon and downed it like it was medicine. “There’s a lot riding on this.”

“Too damn much for my liking,” Bond said. He looked away from the prostitutes at their table, giving them only the chilliest of smiles. He peered around and caught snippets of English.

The count of businessmen to prostitutes was just about equal. He briefly wondered about the laws of supply and demand.

“If this plays out, I may retire.” Ackermann sipped his bourbon, which cost twice the price it should anywhere else this side of the Berlin Wall.

A girl in too much make-up and a gold lamé dress tried to catch Ackermann’s eye, but when she spied Bond looking at her, she made a show of fishing out a compact from her tiny handbag and giving her eyebrows a once over. 

As Ackermann turned to Bond, he spilled bourbon over the back of his hand. “We Germans, we do everything well.” He laughed as he said it.

Bond took his bourbon. “Let me help you.”

He licked the back of his hand. “Even being defeated, we are expert at it.” With his free hand, he indicated the whole of Germany, outside the walls of the Hilton. “This is the parade ground of Europe. A vast flat plain of scrub and windswept pine that stretches eastward from the Elbe to the Urals. This is the highway for conquerors. And Berlin is in the exact center of it.”

A young-looking boy entered the bar and took the stool next to Ackermann. He flashed cufflinks at the bartender and ordered a Beefeater martini.

Bond said, “One might argue that Hilter is the counter-point to that argument. From the Reichstag to conquering most of Europe.”

“A thousand-year Reich that lasted seven,” Ackermann said. It was an acrimonious statement, said with a smile.

When the Beefeater martini was delivered, the boy took a sip and turned slowly to survey the room. 

Ackermann set down his tumbler. He said, “We never could produce a viable resistance organization because there was nothing left from which to form one. By 1945, we had thirteen-year-old boys guarding the Ku-damm and waiting for Soviet tanks to clank out of the Grunewald. And so we became an occupied country ⸺ occupied by you. And the French and the Soviets and the Americans. And as the occupied, what did we do? We fraternized with our one-time enemies.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” said Bond. He resented being lectured.

The young man pretended to notice Ackermann and Bond, even though they were inches apart. “Mr. Brown, Mr. Green.”

‘Oh Christ,’ Bond thought to himself. It wasn’t amateur theatrics ⸺ it was Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera pretending to be spycraft.

He extended a hand. He called himself ‘Jerry,’ and Bond wondered if that were a play on the World War Two nickname for Germans, or if he had received that name randomly.

“We understand you had a development,” ‘Jerry’ said. “Do you want to speak in private?”

“No need,” said Ackermann. “There’s been a change with Mr. Lemon’s itinerary.”

“Yes.”

“He’ll be coming to Berlin in two weeks time.”

This was news to Bond ⸺ both, it confirmed that Kronsteen would be walking on his own two feet and not drugged, and it gave a sense of time, which was something new.

The boy flashed a big smile before sinking his teeth into the Beefeater martini.

“West or East?” He said ‘Die Insel oder Osten,’ giving the West German nickname for their own slice of Berlin.

“East.”

“We will arrange a schedule of events,” he said. “There should be some money available to pay for his stay.”

“Of course,” said Ackermann.

‘Jerry’ shot his cuffs to show off his cuff-links, then finished his martini and vanished.

Ackermann and Bond exchanged frowns.

Ackermann shook his head. “The Section 42. They’re all like that.”

“Cowboys,” Bond dismissed.

# # #

Once Bond departed, Theodor Ackermann finally allowed himself to relax.

There were times when he viewed himself as a hermit, living on the edge of a dark and brooding Bavarian wood, an eccentric living alone but hardly lonely, with food crumbs on his waistcoat and his head crammed full of genius.

However, tonight he was the personification of Knallharte ⸺ that tough, almost violent quality which post-war Germany saw fit to reward the wealthy and attractive with admiring glances. You needed to stay on top in this town. Berlin was no place for an intellectual these days.

Ackermann was glad that the Englishman had gone. One could have too much of the English. 

The Germans were becoming prosperous, and the English didn’t like it.

They were an isolated people, he thought. In the middle of that cold sea, surrounded by herring.

He thought of what he had told Bond. They were occupied, and so they had fraternized with their enemies. The Germans collaborated with the hated French, and gave their houses to the Americans soldiers and their factories to the Soviets and their wives to the British officers. They cleaned up the rubble of the war with their own bare hands and they pretended not to notice the empty lorries that passed us coming back from the official brothels installed by the Allies.

Ackermann sipped his bourbon and slipped his foot onto the foot-rail of the bar. He hoped that anyone coming in would take him for an American. One of the Embassy people, perhaps, or one of their businessmen. 

Johnny looked at the blonde prostitute. Her gown had hiked up to where he could see the type of suspender belt she was wearing. He flashed her a smile. She smiled back. ‘A fifty-mark lay,’ he thought, and lost interest. He gestured to the barman for another bourbon. 

“Plenty of ice, this time,” he said. He liked to hear himself saying that. “Plenty of ice.”

Ice was such a luxury in modern Berlin.

Ackermann tapped a Benson & Hodges on his thumbnail and noticed the brown his skin was against the white of the cigarette. He clipped the cigarette between his lips.

The barman brought his drink and Ackermann gestured for a light.

Along the bar, there were a few tourists and a newspaper writer whom Ackermann was trying to cultivate. You never know when you need a newsman in your pocket.

The barman lit it with a silver lighter. “Thank you,” Ackermann said in English.

The barman grinned at him. “Mir kann keener,” he said. ‘You can’t fool me.’

Ackermann turned away, annoyed. He didn’t like being marked as a German, especially when he was trying to pass himself off as an American.

Still, he made a mental note to cultivate the barman. It made life easier in a town like Berlin to know everybody. 

He sipped his bourbon and tried to think of a way to keep London happy.

Happy for long enough, at least. 

M’s boy, he thought, he was all right, he supposed ⸺ for an Englishman.

He didn’t like Englishmen as a rule. They were expert at playing with their cards close to the chest, and you never knew where you stood with him. 

Pompously going through the motions of statecraft, they hadn’t realized yet that they were finished, as a people. There was a time when Darwinian law was applied to nations. But if it hadn't been for the sentiment of other nations, the Americans in particular, the Second World War would have seen an end to the United Kingdom. Theirs were a nation of inventive geniuses who produced dozens of different types of electrical plugs, none of which worked efficiently. Where hospitality was so rare that ‘landlady’ was a pejorative word. Where the English boast to the world that the only British shortcoming is modesty.

A ridiculous people, he thought. There were days when Ackermann wished that he was working with the Americans instead. They had more in common, he felt.

Ackermann caught the eye of the blonde woman in the gold lamé dress. He blew her a kiss and wrinkled his eyes in greeting. She waved her small gold-mesh handbag at him in turn.

All around there was a rumble of courteous conversation. At the piano, the player had stumbled upon a block of music with which he was comfortable, and had hit his stride with Du Machst mich Wahnsinnig and Der Boogie-Woogie. Both hits with Charlie and his Orchestra, a swing bang created by Joseph Goebbels.

Ackermann looked through the tobacco smoke and fingered the British passport in his pocket. ‘So Kronsteen is coming,’ he thought to himself. Such a good turn.

It meant that Kronsteen was hiding on the other side of the wall, of course. Well, the wall made no difference to him. 

If the Communists hadn’t stopped all their riff-raff from streaming across the frontier into the West in search of jobs, then where would they get the people to work in their factories? From the East, Ackermann figured. Mongolians and Ukrainians, no doubt. From the war-ravaged lands of the Russians. And like that, Russia takes over Germany in a fashion no German could ever have conceived.

He studied the woman in the gold lamé dress as she made her way toward him. He debated sending a champagne cocktail to the blonde prostitute at her table, just to irk her.

“Well, hello, handsome,” she said in English with a broad caricature of a Southern accent. “Ah de-clayah Ah have naught seen you here be-foah.”

“Cut it out, Shiri,” he said in English.

Shiri Ritchfield had effected a whole new look ⸺ a disguise, really. A wig to hide her hair. Face darkened, but in a subtle and believable fashion. Tricks of make-up to alter the shape and contour of her eyes and mouth. Dark along the sides of the bridge of her nose to make it more prominent. Padding in her bra to make her bosom look bigger, and her waist cinched tight in with a corset. She was unrecognizable.

He gave her a kiss, abandoning the idea of the champagne cocktail. “You look divine,” he said.

“And you are ever the sexy beast,” Shiri said. “Did he spot me?”

“You had him fooled.”

She smiled at that. “I miss you, Theodor.”

“We have to play it cool a little longer,” he said, gently touching one of her arms with the tips of his fingers. “Just a little longer.”

“He’s coming,” she said. She didn’t have to clarify who ‘he’ was.

“I know. And when the transaction is complete, we will have all the time in the world.”

A voice at the far end of the bar said, “You saw it, didn’t you? We call it the ‘wall of shame.’ The whole world should see it.”

“Take dinner with me,” he said.

“I can’t,” Shiri said, “I wish that I could.”

“Please?”

“No,” she said with a sweet smile. “It’ll take too long.”

He smiled back. “I know.”

Again, he touched her arm. She touched the nape of her neck then smoothed her dress.

“Does he know?”

“About ⸺” he caught himself. “About Mr. Lemon? Yes, and he’ll report back that it’s progressing.”

“I mean... you know what I mean.”

“I know.”

The piano-player finished up with a fancy cadenza. Ackermann put his cigarette in his mouth and clapped his hands, joining the applause from the others in the bar. His face beamed through the ribbon of smoke.

“Do you have him lined up?” Shiri asked.

“Yes,” he lied.

Well, not exactly a lie. But it wasn’t the truth. Not completely the truth. He understood that Shiri needed to see him and be reassured that things were moving forward, and that his plan was working just fine. 

The lounge was beginning to fill up. 

Ackermann leaned back against the bar. It was good to know that the French, the Soviets, even the Americans, couldn’t take advantage of him.

So long as the British didn’t get Kronsteen, he was fine.

And if he got some cash out of it.

“I should go,” Shiri said, and gave him a quick kiss. “I wish I could take dinner with you.”


	6. Puppy-Dog Tails

The nondescript property on Giesebrechtstrasse had at one time been a brothel operated by the SD during the Second World War. In the heart of Berlin, its targets were not foreign agents or individuals, but rather German dignitaries, top industrialists, high-ranking civil servants, and senior Nazi Party members. Its purpose was to record their honest opinions on Nazi-related topics and individuals, once tongues were loosened with alcohol and pleasurable company.

It was shut down after the war, of course, although intelligence services on both sides of the Berlin Wall operated similar operations.

The building where the SD brothel had once been housed was now apartments, with a bank of coffee shops, a stationary store, and a shoe repair shop in its ground floor.

Bond entered a few minutes before his scheduled time, but he found Kerwin Arnold seated in the back, a cup of coffee before him.

“Mr. Green,” Arnold greeted him.

“Mr. White,” said Bond. “There’s two things I want to talk with you about.”

“All right.” Arnold stood and joined Bond at the counter where Bond ordered a coffee and a warmed-up franzbrötchen. “Are things coming together?” he asked. 

“Pushkin and the Section 42 boys are being helpful,” Arnold answered, and led Bond to his table. “Very helpful.”

Bond extracted from an inside coat pocket a street map of Berlin in my pocket. He moved a couple of ashtrays and spread it across the table. “Section 42 will bring Kronsteen into West Berlin, but I’m not sure how or where, and my masters are asking me.”

Arnold looked over Bond’s shoulder. He smelled of coffee and cigarettes, neither very pleasant. “Pushkin will bring Kronsteen into East Berlin somewhere here, within this rectangle.” He drew one with a finger on the map, just north of Alexanderplatz. “He’ll tell us where. If we don’t like it, we can set up somewhere else in the same district.”

“Why don’t you have him brought down to Marienborn and handed over at the West German frontier?”

“Not possible,” he said. “It’s outside Pushkin’s district.”

“Foolish of me,” Bond said, “I should have realized. Very well then, you have Kronsteen here ⸺” he stabbed the street map “ ⸺ or at least you think you .”

“From there, the Section 42 boys will post him special delivery to West Berlin.”

“Then what?”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘then what?’”

Bond pursed his lips as if in thought. “If I know anything about the CIA, and especially if I make my guess about the Section 42 boys, they will delay the transfer for at least twenty-four hours so that they can pump Kronsteen for any useful information.”

Arnold grinned at him, showing a lot of shiny white teeth. “Part of the game, Mr. Green.”

“How will the Section 42 people move him across the wall?”

“Oh, you disappoint me,” he said. “You know better than to ask. And if I ask, they’ll just lie to me.”

“Creatively, I hope,” said Bond.

“Reasonably creative.” He checked his watch and said, “You said you had two things to ask me.”

“Oh, yes,” said Bond as if he’d forgotten. “Do you have a tail on me?"

Arnold blinked like a deep-water fish. “I beg your pardon?”

“A man's been following me all day. One of yours?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Medium build, brown hair thinning, Burberry-style trench coat and Italian loafers, one-sixty, glasses, right-handed. He's probably standing across the street right now, wondering how to blend in.”

“Burberry style trench coat?”

“Like David Niven would wear. If he's not yours, who is he?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Arnold. He looked alarmed.

“Too obvious to be KGB. Must be someone from Section 42. Too Goddamned amateur to be anything else.”

“Why would they keep tabs on you?” Arnold asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Get in touch with them and pull this guy off. There’s probably three of them, the other two out on the flanks. That's normal shadow procedure.”

“They could be trying to help. Keeping a protective eye on you.”

“That’d be like getting military advice from the French. If you can’t call them off, I'll do it myself. And that will hurt them.”

“If they’re Section 42’s people, they won’t like that.”

“Hard cheese.”

# # #

Bond made his way back to the Kempi with the trench-coated tail following him. He debated losing the man ⸺ it would not have been hard, he was amateur hour ⸺ but he thought it might be more beneficial to see who is tailing and why. It was hard, and insulting to his nature, but he decided to let the fool continue to follow him.

When being tailed, you fall into one of two big categories. You either spot the tail, or you don’t. If you don’t, there’s nothing you can do.

If you spot your tail, it begs a simple question ⸺ why?

The tail might want you to spot him or her, to send a message that indeed you are being tailed, an intimidation tactic.

The tail might want you to spot him or her, so that when you lose the tail you are not aware of the second tail. You think you’re clean because you got rid of the one without knowing about the other.

Or it could be plain old-fashioned incompetence.

Bond didn’t think it was the CIA or the KGB ⸺ they’d know better.

SPECTRE seemed unlikely, although he couldn’t rule them out.

Some foolish idea from Section 42, he figured that was possible but it didn’t seem likely. He was working with them, and there was no reason for them to put a tail on him.

Which meant an outside agency.

Bond collected his key from the desk and learned that he had no message. He would have to check out and find a new place. 

Rather than go up to his room, assuming that it had been sorted through, he decided instead to sit himself in the lobby’s bar and ponder his next step.

The Hotel Adlon Kempinski had suche cache that when it opened in 1907, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife were in attendance. It had survived world depression, two world wars, and a Nazi coup. It endured the Second World War with almost no damage, and was a favorite hang-out for the Nazi elite. Bugt it couldn’t survive Occupation ⸺ the main building burned down when drunken Red Army soldiers looting the wine cellar set it on fire.

The lobby bar was something of an afterthought. It had been in the main building, and when it was lost, it was recreated off to one side of the lobby. It was in a sea of white, sterile marble, and bright illumination. It felt like he was drinking in a hospital.

The bartender was busy scrubbing out a glass. His inquiry into what he wanted to drink consisted of raising a single well-groomed eyebrow.

“Ein Whisky bitte,” he said. “Mit Eis.”

He ceased abusing the glass long enough to pour out for Bond a good two fingers of whisky along with a foursome of ice cubes. He delivered it without a word.

Bond was halfway through the first glass. He turned casually and took in the whole lobby. He didn’t spot the puppy-dog that had been following him, but he figured the man was outside, trying to figure out how he could look like he’s reading a newspaper in the growing dark.

There were several pairs at the other marble-topped tables. Quiet conversation. No sound but for the click of shoes on lobby marble, muted voices at the counter. Not even a quartet in the corner sawing up Mozart.

He turned back, and a sense of weight pressed down on him. It was as if his suit had suddenly gained twenty pounds overall. He felt it drag down his arms and push down his shoulders.

Picking up a tail, it would seem that the whole damned thing had gone to shit.

He realized with a surprise that his glass was empty.

Bond gestured for another.

He heard her before she landed. A pair of hands caught the edge of the bar’s counter. “Hey, you. You, pencil-moustache, over here!”

The voice was feminine, after a fashion, and decidedly American.

“Jawohl, Madame?”

She looked at Bond as if seeing him for the first time. “Hey, you, handsome guy, what’s good in this dump?”

Bond blinked, then held up his glass. “They have Chivas Regal Gold.”

“That’s a good one?”

“That’s a very good one.”

“Sold,” she said to the bartender. “No ice. Every ice cube I find in my glass, I will be forced to kill you.”

“You sound like my employer,” Bond said.

“Ha,” she said. “I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous. Not everyone has met me yet.”

Bond smiled at that and took in the woman. She was dressed in something black and too tight, with a hat balanced on dark brunette hair layered in a veil. She was not tall, and perhaps not the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, but she exuded a sense of energy that he found appealing. She’s arrived at the bar with a pair of suitcases, which were hazards down around their knees.

She lifted her glass to Bond. “My doctor told me to watch my drinking, so now I drink in front of a mirror.”

“To mirrors,” Bond said.

“I hate mirrors,” she said. “Only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people.”

Bond laughed at that. “My psychiatrist said my husband and I should have sex every night,” she continued. “Now, we never see each other.” She stuck out her hand and added, “By the way, I’m Larry.”

“Larry.”

“Larry,” she said. “Yes, my name is Larry.”

“Why are you ‘Larry?’”

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m Laurentine St. Odine. My parents were French-Canadian who moved to Omaha, hatched me, and named me Laurentine. You know what happens to you when you’re living in Omaha, Nebraska, with a name like Laurentine? Hence, Larry.”

“I can’t imagine it’s better than ‘Laurentine.’”

“Believe me, it’s no worse. So, who the hell are you, fresh guy?”

Bond presented his card, which Laurentine studied in one hand with her drink in the other. She looked from the card to Bond to the card again and to Bond again. “Neydermeier?”

“Of the Plywood Research Council.”

She passed the card back. “I thought my parents were crap. Your name, that’s evil.”

“Is it?”

“Melvin, coupled with Neydermeier? My God, it must’ve been tough growing up.”

Bond grinned. He liked her brassy, ballsy nature. “It had its ups and downs.”

Laurentine looked around and asked, “So is everyone this stiff in Berlin?”

“Pretty much,” said Bond. “It’s a German thing. First time in Europe?”

“Naw, I was here like ten years ago. Post-war tour. Gotta see a lot of bombed out shells of buildings, rubble in the streets, bread lines. Wasn’t that great.”

“Why now?”

She took a turn. “What do you think?”

“You look like you’re dressed for a funeral.”

“Exactly!” She downed her drink in a fast gulp and gestured for another. “Best reason to come. Funeral for someone you hate. In this case, my ex-husband’s mother.”

“Never got along with her?”

“Lemme put it this way ⸺ she makes Papa Joe Stalin look nice.” She picked up her fresh drink. “I gotta ask, this plywood council thing ⸺”

“Plywood Research Council.”

“Yeah, whatever. Is it tough?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You keep checking out the lobby like you’re expecting the cops to rush in at any moment and arrest you.”

“I didn’t realize that I was.”

“I’ve not even been up to my room yet, you know that?” she said, flitting to another topic. “Here ⸺ taxi to the cemetery in time to see her planted ⸺ hang out with relatives I never liked saying nice things about a woman I hate ⸺ then here. Is there any place ‘round here with good food? And I mean good food, none of this German potato-and-sausage crap.”

“We should see what we can find,” Bond offered.

“That sounds nice.” She drank off half of her whisky. “I’ve reached the point where food has taken the place of sex. My dining table sees more action than my bed.”

“I imagine we can rectify that.”

“Whoa, hold on there, cowboy. I only just met you.” She downed the whiskey. “You know, I drink too much. The other day when I had my morning pee, there was an olive in it.”

# # #

They went in search of a place to eat that wouldn’t be too reliant on potatoes and sausage. Then it was another bar, then the Friedrichstadt-Palast, one of the oldest cabarets in Berlin. It had survived two world wars, two dictatorships, and continued to draw crowds with its off-beat but always superb shows.

Bond kept an eye on the puppy-dog ⸺ it amused him to think of the man as such ⸺ and he did not disappoint.

They dined at a restaurant near the Zoologischer Garten, at the window, and Bond saw him oblique from them, across the street, loitering at a news agent’s kiosk until the operator shooed him off.

They walked down the street to a kafe, where they popped in to fortify with more whiskey, and Bond observed the puppy-dog on a pay phone.

Out of the kafe, they caught a taxi, and looking back ⸺ discreetly ⸺ Bond saw him flag down a taxi to follow. He imagined the clown telling the driver, “Follow that car!”

Der Palast Berlin was located in the Mitte District, a couple of blocks from where the Spree carved its way through the downtown core. It had been a fixture for around ninety years, starting as an indoor circus and morphing ⸺ and moving ⸺ with the times. Operating under a variety of names over time, it had regained its original name when the city of Berlin took over the property in 1949, and the whole building was renovated.

The show billed itself as a cabaret extravaganza, promising a frivolous, decadent, and taboo-free experience. Its bill included acrobats, drag acts, jazz and other musical performances, in short a best-of-everything revue. Bond was familiar with Der Palast from other visits to Germany, and knew of their attention to detail and will to put on the best cabaret show that they could.

Of course, the puppy-dog followed them in.

The impresario of the show was a statuesque woman called Lady Teeze, billed as a ‘conductor of vibrant electricity,’ which was if anything underselling her. She brought fierce looks and a jaw-dropping musicality that could hold its own on any Las Vegas revue, coupled with an uncanny ability to read the crowd and keep the show moving.

Musical acts opened the show, followed by a drag queen comedienne who was funny in German, a language which Laurentine did not speak, but she laughed along, buoyed by the infectious laughter of the crowd. Then a topless act, which Bond appreciated, a juggling act that included a beautiful woman losing most of her clothing, and then another musical act with chorus-line dancing.

Then intermission.

As they made their way to the lobby for drinks, Bond excused himself. “Sorry, darling, something I have to take care of.”

“Tinkle time?”

“Something like that.”

As he moved away from her, he was aware of the tail coming through a door and catching sight of him.

He moved through the festive crowd, and knew the puppy-dog was behind him. Heading first toward the bathroom, he broke left and shoved through a door marked ‘Privat.’

He dodged through a backstage area, aware of voices calling to him ⸺ it was darker back here, a hallway with food trays placed on frames. The kitchen was to the right, and he headed that way.

“Du darfst nicht hierher zurück,” a voice called.

“Lebensmittelinspektor,” Bond called back, “food inspector.”

Bond pushed through swinging doors into a starkly-lit kitchen. Cooks looked up at him but returned to their tasks. No one said a thing.

A door at the back opened into the back alley. Bond bee-lined for it.

It opened onto a service area facing Johannisstrasse. He skipped down the three steps into the warren of dustbins and garbage cans that littered the stretch of wall. Bare bulbs in tin hats shown down on a grubby cement wall.

Bond found a champagne bottle, which he clutched by the neck, thankful for the weight of the dimpled bottom. He pressed back into the shadowy niche alongside the stairs that projected out from the building.

The door banged open and the tail, in a panic, hurried down the stairs, seeking Bond.

Bond moved.

The champagne bottle cracked against the man’s head with a satisfying crack.

The man spun and for an instant took up a boxing stance. But the blow had sapped him, and his legs first wobbled, then collapsed under him. He went down with a sigh.

Bottle still in hand, Bond rolled the man over and quickly searched him. A wallet provided an identity card in the name of Walter Kohner, along with a handful of marks and some stamps. He found no weapon, other than a clasp knife.

He was about to slap him around a bit in an attempt to bring him back when he heard a voice and shoe leather out toward the street.

Bond faded back into the shadow as two figures appeared, strung out along the shadowy Johannisstrasse. Backlit by a streetlight, their long shadows fell before them on the wet pavement, like gaunt skeletal giants. Bond could see their featureless silhouettes, mat black in yellowish glow of sodium-mercury lights. He remained motionless, his heart beating in his temples, aware that their unconscious friend was in view, only partially obscured by shadow.

They exchanged some muttered words. One seemed to want to go away, another thought they should enter the Palast-Berlin and investigate whether or not Bond had double-backed on them. 

After a moment of vacillation, they decided to enter the club. 

Bond pressed back against the wall as they neared the rear entrance. Getting the two was going to be tricky. 

As they came toward the steps, their mate was spotted. “Walter!” one of the called out.

As they came toward him, Bond moved again.

He brought the bottle down on the head of the nearest one with a satisfyingly solid crack, but the bottle, never engineered for hand-to-hand combat, shattered on the man’s temple. 

The other jumped away, then rushed at him with well-schooled reactions. Hands clutched at him, a fist caught Bond on the shoulder. Bond’s shoe cracked into a shin. He jerked away with a broad backhand sweep that made Bond dodge back for an instant.

He should have run. Instead, he charged at Bond, and it was over. 

Bond struck him with the flat palms of his open hands, loud concussing blows that splatted against his assailant’s head. He swung a single haymaker of a blow and then was down on his knees. A second open-palm to the back of his head, and he was face down on fragments of broken glass.

The intermission was nearly over, but Bond took the time necessary to examine his tails. 

One was semiconscious, laying on his back with blood streaming from his nose and mouth. Another was moaning in delirium where he had fallen, flattened by Bond’s open palm. The last was a silent heap among garbage cans and kitchen refuse.

Two more wallets and two more names ⸺ Horst Verhoeven and Alexander Zublinsky.

The show had begun by the time Bond returned to his seat ⸺ he needed a moment in the bathroom to clean up, and a drink to wash the cupric taste of action out of his mouth.

“Where the hell were you?” Laurentine asked in a harsh whisper, “I thought you’d skipped out on me.”

“Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Bond told her.


	7. Bond Takes some Meetings

Bond arrived mid-morning at Orly, and made his own way to Paris. He had opted to dress anonymously, and had flown under the name of Klaus Hergersheimer, in case either his name or the name of Neydermeier had gathered interest.

Mlle. Françoise LaPorte met him at the exit where rue de Vieux Colombier joined rue de Rennes. “I’m so glad to see you again, Mr. Bond,” she said. “You look fit and hale.”

“I feel fit and hale.” It was the prescribed recognition code ⸺ if the meeting had to be dumped, for any reason, they would have answered with different phrases.

As they walked along Vieux Colombier toward Saint-Sulpice, unmindful of the hordes of tourists flocking to the streets, LaPorte said, “Your boss called on short notice to review these pictures.”

“I know, I’m sorry. He felt it was safer here than in Germany.”

“Can you leave your project for so long?”

“Not much choice in the matter, is there.”

They crossed Bonaparte, and rue de Vieux Colombier became Place Saint-Sulpice. The cathedral was an imposing bulk that shadowed rue Saint-Sulpice. Expensive shops and apartments lined the other side of the street, and LaPorte opened a wrought-iron gate at one of the buildings to admit him.

Up stairs, carved with the detail and care worthy of a cathedral, to an apartment on the third floor. Bond noted that its door was an identical facing to the others on the floor, but that it was cored with steel and could probably withstand a bazooka round or two.

Inside, the apartment had been gutted of walls and furnished in a strange combination of office equipment, desks and chairs, plus cots and an efficiency kitchen. A safe-house that doubled as a satellite office.

Bond looked around at the rough wooden floor, the pine desk stained so that it imitated teak, and the gleaming new IBM typewriter. Large spiky plants on the window sill created the illusion of occupancy.

“It’s lovely,” he said. The leaves were long and prickly, the bright green bleeding into a dull yellow at the edges. “Just lovely.”

“It serves its purpose,” said LaPorte.

“Barely.”

“I sent along to Interpol a blue request for anything they have on those names that you provided. No reply so far, but it’s early yet. Your boss had forwarded pictures of Red Army people who work for the Karlshorst Security Control Area. M himself would like to talk with you after that. You have no lunch appointments, so I took the liberty of ordering in sandwiches. Sorry, but it’s what we can do on our budget.”

“That’s fine,” Bond lied. 

“Also, Dr. Glauser phoned and wanted to see you. Hand-holding, I suspect. He’s only tangentially involved, so use your discretion. I said you would call in later but set no time.”

“That was smart of you, thank you.”

“You are confirmed on tomorrow evening’s flight back to Berlin, B.O.A.C., and I have checked with your hotel there. The Kempi.”

“You wonderful creature,” Bond said. “You would put M’s secretary to shame.”

“I would hope not.” As she brushed past, her arm brushed Bond’s shoulder and he caught a faint drift of perfume. ‘Arpege,’ he thought.

She returned with a folder filled to overflowing with photostatic copies of surveillance pictures, soldiers of varying ranks in and around Karlshorst.

Bond glanced through them. “This is a waste of time, Françoise.”

“It is,” she agreed, “but most spy business is, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes it’s lively.”

“Have a seat,” she said, “and I’ll put on coffee. You work fast through those, it should only take two or three hours.”

“Delightful.”

# # #

The phone call had gone through smoothly, but it sounded as though the call were being conducted in a submarine fifty fathoms below the surface. 

M started the call by saying, “I read your report, 007. It appears that everyone’s getting at you again.”

Bond could imagine M pinching the bridge of his nose without looking up from his desktop. “I’d noticed that too,” he said.

“Tell me about Pushkin,” M said. “Ginger biscuit?”

“I’m sorry, what? ‘Ginger biscuit?’”

“I have Tanner here as well. You’re on this speaker thingie that Q put together, allows multiple people to listen in on a phone conversation at one time.”

Bond said, “Pushkin is just doing a job. He was very up-front about that.”

“Not a bad biscuit, that,” said M, then,”Is Pushkin good at his job?”

The call was disconcerting, but Bond pushed on. “I think so, sir. Much too good to think that I’d go for that clumsy cover story about his wife being dead. Either he wanted me to discover the lie so that I’d more likely to believe his subsequent story, or....”

“Or?” prompted M.

“Or he thought I wasn’t bright enough to sort it out.”

“Does he know you, 007?”

Bond didn’t know if that was a dig or not. M wasn’t given to them, as a rule, unless he was angry, and between the weird tinny quality of his voice over Q’s contraption and that he was not in the same room, he wasn’t sure.

“I don’t understand his game,” Bond answered diplomatically.

“These Section 42 people, how are they going about it with Kronsteen?”

“They seem efficient and that they know what they are doing.”

“But?” asked M. “I could hear that in your voice. Pass me the creamer, Bill.”

A muffled sound in the background was probably Bill Tanner, M’ Chief of Staff, saying that he would.

“But they’re pushy, and I don’t like being pushed around.”

“You are just piqued,” M pronounced.

“Perhaps,” agreed Bond. “I don’t like these Section 42 boys treating me like an employee.” He changed the subject. “What about the girl? What have we found out about Laurentine St. Odine?”

“It’s probably a phoney name,” said Tanner from a distance. “As near as we can tell anyway. No green or white cards at Scotland Yard. Nothing at Central Register. Per her passport, she’s American. We’ve put in a request for information through to Washington.”

“It sounds to me like a random contact,” M said.

“Except that this girl followed me. She pops up at the bar where I’m drinking and is checked into the same hotel. Now, add in a false name. It’s clumsy and obvious. We can’t just ignore it.”

“Quite right,” agreed M. “We can’t be too careful, although it still sounds like a random contact to me.”

“And see her again,” added the Chief of Staff as if calling from Mars.

“Don’t worry about that,” Bond said. “I may as well get something out of this, if it’s only entertainment.”

“Everything else O.K.?” The call was going sideways, and Bond didn’t know who had asked.

“Everything else is moving along, I suspect.”

“Good, good.”

“What’s the decision on Pushkin’s demands?”

“The money?” M asked. “Ah.”

Bill Tanner said, “We’re still sorting that out.”

“We might lose Kronsteen,” said Bond. “Others will buy up Kronsteen like a shot if they get wind of it.”

“That’s what’s worrying me.”

“The money is dispersed through other sources,” said Tanner, “out of our hands.”

“Very well,” said M. “Ear to the ground, all that. I’ll have Bill forward to you some hardware.”

‘Hardware’ usually meant a weapon. If M thought that Bond needed a gun, he was at the sticky end of it.

“And for God’s sake, be circumspect with it,” added Tanner. “It’s a hell of a responsibility.”

# # #

St. Cyr was located in Coëtquidan, in the department of Morbihan, was a brutal five-hour drive or a relaxing three-hour train ride. Bond opted for the train.

Properly named  École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr , St. Cyr was the foremost French military academy. Founded in 1802, its original buildings were once a boarding school for girls founded by king Louis XIV at the request of his second wife, Madame de Maintenon. Its campus now sprawled across a huge swath of the rural countryside, hemmed in on all sides by the thick wood of the Paimpont forests. It offered rigorous military training for both French citizens and their counterparts from the ragged remnants of the French Empire.

Dr. Glauser’s office overlooked the Cour Napoléon, a tiny space with a narrow slit of a window. “Wonderful view,” he said to Bond as he gestured him into the office's one hardwood chair ⸺ it was too small already for his military-surplus metal desk, his own rolling chair, the two bookcases, and the small aspidistra struggling to survive on the window sill.

“I’m sure,” said Bond. The hardwood chair lacked a little thing he liked to call ‘comfort.’

“I sometimes watch the cadets on drill,” he said. “So very handsome, moving in unison. You feel such pride. Quite lovely.”

“Dr. Glauser ⸺”

Dr. Glausner turned to him suddenly. He wore a lighly checked jacket with an asoct tucked into his white shirt, with a diamond stick-pin in it. Pomade, liberally applied, kept his hair from escaping. “You should come here on a festival day,” he interrupted. “It’s a most impressive sight.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Bond. “Now, about ⸺”

“Tea?” he said. “Or coffee?” Before Bond could answer, Dr. Glauser depressed a button on his office intercom. “Madame Couvier, we’d like a nice cup of creamy coffee, please. Will you please tell Marie-Thérèse? I have a visitor.”

“That’s not necessary,” Bond insisted.

He dismissed Bond’s objection with a wave of his hand. “Nothing to it, dear boy.”

Bond reigned in his annoyance as Dr. Glauser sorted through files on his desk. One was a manila dossier with ‘Kronsteen’ written across the top of it in thick black pen.

Bond checked his watch, more to express his annoyance than because of a need to be someplace. “Section 42’s people tell me that Kronsteen should come into Berlin in two weeks’ time.”

“Oh, we know all about that,” he said airily.

“Oh?”

“Yes. Your people told me. MI-6 is all secrecy and bad manners, but at the end of the day they just talk, don’t they.”

“Do they?” Bond asked, trying to keep his voice from sounding poisonous.

“Now you’re being naughty,” said Dr. Glauser. “It will be to the advantage of both of us in the long run if we get along.” He offered what he thought was a winning smile. 

“You asked me for a meeting,” said Bond. “Well, here I am.”

There was a tap at the door, which opened a moment later unbidden. An aged crone in a faded-floral print apron limped painfully into the room struggling with a large tray bearing cups, saucers, and a full coffee service.

“Put it down there, Madame Couvier,” he said, indicating his desk. There was no place else to put it. “Lovely,” he cooed. “And chocolate digestives, too. My goodness.” Dr. Glauser moved a mound of files to make room for the coffee tray.

As she tried to heave the tray onto the landing pad he’d cleared for her, Dr. Glauser said, “I say, Mr. Bond, do you have a cigarette?” He produced a silver cigarette holder.

Bond fished out his black gunmetal cigarette case and opened it for him.

Dr. Glauser selected one, unmindful of Madame Couvier. “These look nice.”

“Morland & Co.,” Bond answered. The English gentleman in him wanted to come to Madame Couvier’s rescue, but the secret agent in him wanted to see where Dr. Glauser was going with his annoyance act.

The aged crone turned to him with a big smile and both hands locked together over-and-under.

“How’s your back today, Madame Couvier?” Dr. Glauser asked.

“I think it will rain,” she prognosticated.

“More accurate than the weather people on the television,” the doctor told Bond.

“Really,” Bond said.

Madame Couvier picked up the carafe of coffee and said to Dr. Glauser, “You owe me for two weeks’ service, sir.”

Dr. Glauser looked at her in surprise. “That much? Are you sure?”

“Yes.” The single syllable was chopped and short.

Dr. Glauser glanced at Bond with discomfort, then produced a small leather purse. “Two weeks?”

“Yes, sir.”

He shook coins into his hand, sorted through them like he didn’t want the light to get at them, then gave Madame Couvier a small dripping of silver. “Keep the change.”

“You still owe me twenty centimes.”

“Really?”

“The biscuits.”

Dr. Glauser grudgingly gave her the additional money, and she left, but Dr. Glauser was gazing at the door for a while, looking stunned.

“Dr. Glauser,” Bond said, “is there any chance we can get on with it?”

“Hmm? Yes.”

As he poured out the coffee from the carafe into a pair of fine china cups, he said, “It’s a political matter I wished to discuss with you. Biscuit?”

“No,” Bond said shortly, then, “No, thank you.”

“Go on,” he said. “They’re chocolate, and I’ve already paid for them.” He laughed at his pallid joke. His eyes shone as he rearranged papers on his desk. “Major Pushkin.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We have a question for him.” He gestured to the cup. “Is that coffee too strong?”

“It’s fine,” Bond said, “what’s your question?”

Dr. Glauser sipped a little coffee, then settled the cup into the saucer with a refined delicacy. “We are interested in Pushkin’s side of this deal. He’s an interesting case, you know. A real Old Guard Bolshie. Did you know he was with Antonov-Ovseyenko in the storming of the Winter Palace in ‘17?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You understand what that means in Russia.”

“He’s tantamount to Superman.”

“A minor sort of god, really. The most rigid of the rigid,” Dr. Glauser agreed. “His interest in assisting with the Kronsteen defection is....” His voice trailed off, and his face screwed up as he pondered the correct word. “Unique,” was what he came up with.

“I don’t understand your intent,” said Bond.

Dr. Glauser said, as he screwed Bond’s cigarette into his silver cigarette holder, “We know that old-school Chekists like Pushkin are happy with the idea of the Party having complete control of the land. In five years’ time, the Red Army expects to regain an elite position because of it.”

He accepted Bond’s offer of fire, and puffed the cigarette to life. “I say, that is nice.”

Bond nodded acknowledgement. “A Balkan and Turkish blend.”

“I could get used to this.”

“Don’t,” said Bond, “they’re pricey enough without me supporting your bad habit.”

Dr. Glauser laughed. “Anyway, there is this constant shifting in their influence. When the Army people are feeling confident, we can expect the cold war to warm up. When the Party is in the saddle, we get a lessening of tension.”

Bond said, “War is a continuation of politics.”

Dr. Glauser’s eyes twinkled “Von Clausewitz. Yes.”

“So you don’t believe that Pushkin intends to defect, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Good,” said Bond, “now that’s out of the way. Pushkin claims he’s trying to make some money on the side with this defection.”

“We don’t believe that the Russians would give up Kronsteen,” said Dr. Glauser. “He was a psychologist, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yes, and a rather good one. Lucrative practise in Budapest, as I understand it.” He took a drag off the cigarette holder as he gathered his thoughts. “Some of this is top secret and I shouldn’t share it.”

Bond said nothing.

“Hitler was quite the fan of psychological warfare. He openly and enthusiastically engaged psychologists in his war effort, whereas the British were less inclined to admit that they, too, were using such techniques. They preferred calling it ‘political warfare.’ We have it on good authority that Kronsteen was one of the architects of ‘Case Green,’ a plan to aggressively attack Czechoslovakia that relied heavily on psychological warfare, both within Czechoslovakia and against Czechoslovakia's allies. Internally, the Czechoslovak government and citizenship were inundated with media messaging, particularly radio, designed to break up whatever cohesiveness existed among the Czech and ethnic German minorities.”

“The German minorities were largely pro-Nazi.” 

“Didn’t matter. It was designed to internally weaken and disrupt the country. As a nation, they were supposed to be intimidated and their will broken. Internationally, psychological warfare co-ordinated with propaganda aimed at isolating the country so that it would stand alone against any aggression, with its defences having no hope.” He puffed and removed the silver cigarette holder. “Kronsteen was one of the architects behind this.”

“I see,” said Bond.

“Do you?” asked Dr. Glauser. “Because the Russians are doing this right now. The Americans were collecting Nazis through their Paperclip operation, but so were the Russians. Chemical warfare people, camp operators ⸺ Stalin and his penchance for gulags, mind you ⸺ weapons designers, tanks, aircraft, uniforms. But also the battlefield up here.” He touched his forehead. “Hearts and minds, my dear boy, the only battlefield that matters.”

“Meaning there is no chance that the Russians would give up Kronsteen.”

“Not one,” said Glauser with triumph. “Which begs the bigger question.”

“Yes,” mused Bond, “what does Pushkin get out of helping Kronsteen defect?”


	8. Nightowl

Laurentine St. Odine answered the door to her room wearing a bathrobe, with a towel wrapped around her hair. “I was in the tub,” she said.

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“Who are you again?” she asked. “You’ve been gone so long.”

“I’m with the Plywood Research Council.”

“I thought you were with American Express.”

Bond grinned. “I don’t even sound American.”

“You better come in. I’m dripping dry and you look as if you need a drink.”

Laurentine’s room was beginning to get a sense of being lived in. Goods purchased with her alimony were lined against a wall, in their bags. Her clothes crowded the modest-sized closet.

As she walked to the bathroom, she gestured to the dresser where a tray held bottles, glasses and an ice bucket. “Go and build two drinks.”

“One for you and one for me,” he divined.

He groped through the assortment of random bottles, found sufficient ingredients, and mixed up a pair of martinis served in tooth glasses.

The bathroom was all white tiles and radiant heat and more evidence that she was in for a long time. Lotions crowded the counter space, as did an assortment of different brushes, loose rubber bands, hair spray canisters, and rollers. Lotion and salts were precariously balanced on the tub’s sill.

Laurentine floated in the tub along with a rich lather of bubbles. “Well, don’t just stand there, hand over.”

Bond passed her a tooth glass full of martini. “You seem to be naked, madame.”

“I don’t know how they do it in England, but in America, we take off our clothes for bathing.”

“You’re in Germany.”

She sipped the drink. “What the hell is this?”’

“Martini,” he said, “vermouth and gin.”

“Ugh. Pour it out and do it again.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Stronger, plywood man, stronger. Gin and only a hint of vermouth. In fact, don’t really put any vermouth in the glass, just wave it in the direction of the bottle.”

Bond laughed. “All right.”

“Just suggest the vermouth. Six molecules should be sufficient.”

Bond brought her a much stronger mix. She had already finished her bath and was now wrapped in towels. Laurentine downed the new martini in a single gulp. “Put some music on,” she ordered, “while I get cleaned up.”

“Can I dry your back, or...?”

“Music. Now.”

Bond tuned the room’s radio to a jazz station. Claire Austin sang  I’m Through With Love through a two-inch speaker.

Laurentine came in wrapped in a robe. With a brisk movement, she picked up a pack of Benson & Hedges and fished out a single stick.

Bond came over with his light. “I got it,” she said to him. Her lighter was gold and crystal.

She inhaled the smoke with a cheek-sunken concentration and blew a warm happy cloud of blue-white smoke at the ceiling. Her eyes were enormous, and they studied Bond carefully as he stood by the window. “You’re the best thing in this crummy town, you know that?” she said. 

“Aw, you say the nicest things.”

“Where’ve you been hiding all my life?”

“If I tell you that,” he said, “I’ll have to find a new hiding place.”

She stood and came over to him. Her skin was warm and damp and her body smelled of fresh talcum. “Kiss me, plywood man.”

Bond complied without hurrying.

After a few moments, she pulled back, then moved to the improvised cocktail bar, stroking her upper arms. “Martini?” she asked.

“Still working on this one.”

She assembled herself another one, and turned to face Bond with a charming smile worthy of a dentifrice ad. She said, “I don’t know why I’m still here.” The smile weakened, and she said. “Why am I here?”

“Why are any of us here?” Bond answered. “I believe Kierkegaard said that life is full of absurdity and we must make our own values in an otherwise indifferent world.”

The smile returned with that. “Neitzsche said that life is worth living only if there are goals to inspire you.”

“Neitzsche spent the last two decades of his life in an insane asylum, so there’s that.”

The radio was still rasping the silk-and-sandpaper voice of Claire Austin. 

She nodded again and gave Bond a long hard look. “Any time that entertaining me has become too much of a chore, let me know.”

Bond said, “Stop pouting, and put on some clothes. Let’s get out of here and get a proper drink in a proper bar.”

She came across to Bond. Up close, her forehead was large and under it her blue-grey eyes studied each part of his face. When she spoke, her voice was fresh and childlike and there was no hardness left. “If you say so,” she said. 

Bond kissed her gently on the lips. “I do say so.” He applied another kiss, and then whispered, “Now get dressed, and we’ll get ourselves a halfway decent dinner somewhere.”

“Don’t over-sell it,” she said. “And after that?”

“Concert, theatre, whatever strikes our fancy.”

“And after that?”

“More dinner.”

“And after that?” She offered him a goofy grin. Then as suddenly, her mood changed. “I’d like a concert. Someplace fancy, with orchestra and stuff.”

“Orchestra and stuff it is.”

“I’ll wear my chiffon dress,” she threatened. “Can we?”

“Certainly.”

Laurentine kissed him again, and a strand of her hair was mixed into their kiss. 

As she pulled back from him, long strands of hair were gummed to her cheeks. She gazed up at him, her eyes moist, and then she pushed away roughly and yelled, “My neutralizer!”

“What?”

“My neutralizer,” she exclaimed and broke away from their embrace. “I’m trying out a skin dye, I should have put it on ten minutes ago!”

She disappeared into the bathroom, unwrapping the robe, leaving Bond baffled.

# # #

It was a place she had heard of but never visited, on the feathery edge of Berlin. Damp leaves shone underfoot in the sodium-mercury light like a carpet of newly struck pennies. Ferns demarcating either side of the narrow lane had shrivelled into intricate bronze abstracts.

The  kabarett wasn’t in sight yet, but the clear air, crisp in October’s night, seemed to have cleared Laurentine’s mood. “I swear, she believed that her teeth moved.”

Bond frowned. He had slowed his pace to accommodate her, as she had sped up hers for him, and they moved in an easy rythme up the street. “Well, that happens. They get loose, they wiggle.”

“No,” she said, “she was convinced they moved. Like, the bicuspids and the molars would change places. They would line up shortest to tallest, or tall-short-tall-short-tall-short. And just before she woke up, they’d all scramble back into place.”

“That is insane,” Bond agreed.

“My sixth-grade English teacher.”

Underfoot, the sickly sweet smell of leaves mouldering back into soil rose like perfume. Leaves retaining damp squished under their shoes.

Laurentine had insisted upon something outside of Berlin proper, just to get away from its depressing environs. Bond didn’t mind. As they made their way out to the suburbs south of the borough of Spandau, he kept an eye out for anybody following them.

Nobody that he could see, meaning either they were called off, or they’d gone to a better grade of hoodlum.

The  kabarett was called ‘Der Nightowl’ and it was in a converted 19th-century church. As they got closer, Bond could hear what passed for music seeping out through the walls of the building ⸺  Dansevise , which he had recognized from last year’s Eurovision. Through stone walls and at a distance, it didn’t sound too bad.

The door opened with a vibratory screech and a cadaver at a podium just inside collected their premium for entering. 

Lights shine in through the stained-glass windows. Watery images of Isaiah, John the Baptist, Saint Augustine and the Archangel Gabriel lightly dusted the walls. Complexities in brass hung from the ceiling, glinting like medieval oil refineries.

Laurentine held Bond’s hand as they entered the crowded nave. “My doctor told me to watch my drinking. So now I drink in front of a mirror.”

The  kabarett was devoid of almost all its religious ornamentation. Where the chancel used to be was now a circular stage where three women in tall boots, bikinis and luminescent paint gyrated to The Tornados’  Telstar , in what Bond assumed was a pop form of religious ecstasy. Around the floor, men in rough-knit cardigans or lightweight suits stood at attention with drinks in hands or laid nearly vertical in the few careworn armchairs sprinkled into corners or against walls, all of them making a big thing about being big shots. 

“ Fräulein !’ one shouted to a passing waitress, “ Noch eine Runde Bier !”

A man in an ascot declared in English, “Best damn photographer in the country!”

As they moved through, a buzz of conversation inundated them ⸺ art and life and business, designed to be overheard and repeated.

“⸺ designs all the costumes, down to socks ⸺”

“⸺  mein Gott, es war wunderschön .  Als würde man den Himmel selbst betrachten ⸺”

“⸺ would be a challenge to paint it in sexual terms ⸺”

A man in suede chukka boots said, “He did, too. Put sales up six and three-quarter percent, and got himself all sorts of recognition.” His laugh was deep and manly.

Laurentine refused to let go of his hand. They struggled through gyrating bodies, across the nave and to the starboard transcept where a stained-glass Joseph and Mary riding an ass glowered down on the bar built into the space. She hiked herself onto a recently-vacated stool. Girls with camel coats and cowboy boots and black tights were drinking Pimms gin and exchanging catty gossip.

He nodded to the woman next to him, in an enormous auburn beehive and layered eye make-up that made her more cat than woman, then gestured to the bartender.  “Haben Sie schottischen Whisky ?” he asked.

“Scottish,” said the bartender. “ Nein .”

“Ah. Well, then,  Wodka und Tonic, mit Angostura Bitter .”

“Very good, mein herr ,” he said, and set to work.

“What did you order?” Laurentine asked.

“Vodka tonic, with bitters.”

“Sounds yummy. My whole family were big drinkers. When I was a kid, I went missing. They put my picture on a bottle of Scotch.”

He squeezed in next to her, saying, “ Entschuldige mich ,” to the beehive next to him. The beehive muttered something back at him, but moved off.

The music had shifted to  Wonderful Land by The Shadows. 

“How did you hear about this place?” Bond demanded over the music.

“I asked around. I didn’t expect this,” she confessed. “This is good.”

“The cabaret?”

“This drink? What’s it called?”

“Alcohol.”

“Hmm. I like it. I could get used to this.”

Inside, the Ventures was playing  The 2000 Pound Bee , in adenoidal distortion. Outside, the brutal backfire of a sports car starting sprayed gravel.

Laurentine pressed her head against Bond’s shoulder. She was being loving and little-girlish, at odds with her behavior earlier that day. “We should have had dinner,” she said over the noise.

“We did, didn’t we?”

“That little thing?”

Bond looked out at the dance floor, down the center of the converted church. A writhing mass of powdered shoulders and evening suits lit like a delirium.

She joined his gaze. “I feel out of place here.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t have elbow-length gloves.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he assured her, “you’ve a great face.”

# # #

Laurentine insisted she was hungry after all, and they headed out as the Ventures gave way to John Coltrane and his soprano saxophone. Walking around, they found a restaurant not too far from Der Nightowl, not quite ready to close but close to it, and they went in. They were the only patrons, and Bond really couldn’t blame anyone else ⸺ the interior design was more akin to a burgomeister’s hunting lodge, complete with dead-eyed deer stuffed and mounted to the walls, boars in dust-covered snarls, and overturned beer barrels acting as tables.

Laurentine continued a continuous flow of chatter, skipping across topics like a flat stone flung across the placid surface of a lake, and Bond found himself enjoying the eclectic range of topics. The meal was satisfactory, although typically heavy German fare ⸺  Schweinsbraten served with  Semmelknödel , a side vegetable of carrots and cabbage boiled until dead, and a basket of  Buchteln rolls with  Powidl in their centers. It was more of a gastronomic punishment than a meal, but Laurentine ate with gusto.

He was able to resist the sweets trolley, given that his stomach threatened to burst, but she helped herself to a  Topfenstrudel .

They finished coffee after midnight and made their way via taxi back to the Kempi. Laurentine was quiet for a large part of the journey, her eyes focused not on the city passing by outside the Mercedes, but rather on the back of the passenger seat. They shared the silence.

They checked in at the desk, and Bond suggested that Laurentine could come by his room for a nightcap. “Mine,” she said, “I already got the booze.”

“I don’t have alcohol in my room?”

“Lemme put it this way, lover boy, I know that I have drinks at mine.”

She held his arm tight as they made their way up.

Laurentine pushed open the door to her room, stepped in ⸺ and stopped. “Someone’s been here.”

“What?”

“Someone’s been here.”

“Maid service,” said Bond, looking in. “If it was them, they did a terrible job.”

The room was precisely as they had left it.

Laurentine entered three steps and stopped. All the joy, the pleasure of the evening was sucked out of her face, leaving behind a residue of concern and disappointment. “Someone had been here.”

“It looks exactly the same,” Bond insisted.

“No,” she said, “I can tell.”

“What,” he asked, half-jokingly, “did you leave a hair across the door? A trace of powder on the carpet?”

“Melvin,” she said, and shook his arm. “Check the bathroom.”

“Nobody has been ⸺”

“Check it!”

Bond held up a hand in appeasement. “All right,” he agreed, more serious.

He looked in the small square bathroom, then checked the closet and under the bed. “Sorry,” he said, “no Russian spies or Italian mafiosi in here. Just us.”

“I have to change rooms,” she said, “someone’s been in here.”

“Let’s go down and ask at the desk, shall we?”

“You’re not taking this seriously, are you.” Not a question.

“Of course I am. I don’t know why you feel someone’s been in here, darling, but if you feel that you need to change, then let’s change.”

At the front desk, Bond asked in German if any of the staff had been to Miss St. Odine’s room, and was assured that none had. He inquired about visitors and had the same answer, that there had been no one.

“Tell him I want a different room.”

Bond and the front desk clerk discussed the matter, and he agreed. “The matter will be attended to shortly,” he assured her in German, and Bond translated.

“Have a bellboy pack my bags and move them. I’ll pay extra. I’m not going back into that room.”

“Of course not,” Bond agreed. “Tell you what, wait for me in the bar. I’ll arrange everything with the front clerk.”

“Do it,” she said, in a tone of one who gives commands and expects them to be followed. Without another word, she turned on her heel and nose-dived into the Kempi’s bar, which was quiet.

Bond looked at the front desk clerk and said, in English and in a near whisper, “You look ridiculous.”

“I feel ridiculous,” whispered David Wolkovsky. He wore a white shirt that was a size too small, and the buttons strained with the tension.

“She knew someone had been in there.”

“What?”

“We walked in, and she knew immediately that someone had been there.”

“Impossible,” said Wolkovsky, “we use the best plumbers.”

“‘Plumbers?’”

“CIA talk ⸺ look, never mind. We left no indication that we had been there.”

“Well, she knew.”

“So that’s why the move.”

“I only have a minute,” said Bond, “what’d you learn?”

“Not. much. Paperwork in the name of Laurentine St. Odine of Omaha, Nebraska. Recently widowed. Bank book indicates a weekly stipend from Chase to an account at Deutsche Bank, looks very legal. A lot of rich tourists do that, set up a temporary account at a local bank. She also has ten thou in U.S. traveler’s checks. A lot of expensive jewelry. Not smart, she should put them in the hotel safe. More secure.”

“I’ll be sure to tell her. So is she really Laurentine St. Odine or is that a convincing cover?”

“It’s a first class cover, if it is one. Room feels like a single woman living alone.” Wolkovsky pursed his lips. “One thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“She had some personal correspondence. In Hebrew.”

“Hebrew?”

“We took pictures, will get it translated.”

“Thanks, David, I best go check in on her.”

“Oh, one other thing,” he said, and passed Bond a small square of paper. “You got a message.”

Bond looked it over:

Call your office

“Thanks, David.”

“Running around at night. Mysterious message. B-’n’-E into pretty lady’s rooms. Must be difficult, working for the Plywood Research Council.”

“It’s the hours that get you, not the job.” He pushed off from the desk.

More loudly, Wolkovsky called out in German, “We shall take care of it. You will be in the bar?”

Bond indicated that he would.

As he crossed the lobby, he pondered another, bigger question:

At Der Nightowl, he was positive that the woman at the bar with the enormous beehive hairdo was Shiri Ritchfield, the woman from the golf course.


	9. The Middle Distance Aeroplane Company

  
  
  
  
  


PART TWO :

The Stakes

CHAPTER NINE 

The Middle Distance Aeroplane Company

“James, is that you? I can barely hear you.”

“It’s me,” Bond assured Moneypenny. “I’m calling like I was asked to.”

“There you go, that’s a little better. You sound like you’re telephoning from inside a submarine full of blenders.”

“I assure you I’m not. At least, not one with blenders in it.”

“I haven’t got long, the Old Man has a meeting with the DG and he wants me there to take notes.” A moment and Bond heard Moneypenny rifle through papers on her desk. “We received responses to those three names you forwarded to us. Sorry it took so long, there was a hold-up of some kind on one of them.”

“All right.”

“Kohner, Walter. A series of arrests dating back to 1935. Larceny, burglary, several assaults, several drunkenness in public. He had served in the Wehrmacht in the Oberkommando des Heeres, rank of  gefreiter  ⸺ lance corporal.

“Verhoeven, Horst. A series of arrests also dating back to 1935. Larceny, burglary, attempted murder ⸺ with a brick. Oh, violent man. Hmm, lots of violent arrests. Seems to have spent the war years hiding out. At least, nothing on record.

“Your last name caused the problem. Zublinsky, Alexander, false name. Apparently, it’s a name that comes up periodically through a false paper mill, the sort of name and record that gets recycled again and again. Real name is Dmitri Torkinov, Russian.”

“KGB?” Bond asked.

“Hardly. No criminal record, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one. The suggestion is that he probably served with the Red Army in Berlin and for whatever reason, decided to stay. Probably working the black market in the Soviet Zone. As far as we can tell, no intelligence ties at all.”

“So all three of these are simple street criminals.”

“So it would appear.”

“Thank you, Moneypenny.”

“Oh, there was one more thing. Mr. Coombes assistant, that nice Southern gentleman ⸺”

“Devereaux,” said Bond. “Jebediah Devereaux, of the Charleston River Devereauxs.”

“You say so. Anyway, they’re upset with you.”

“Oh?”

“Apparently, you’ve not been checking in.”

“I have been.”

“No you haven’t.”

“I’m in regular communication with you, Moneypenny. And Universal Exports. And the Plywood Research Council.”

“He means with the phone number that they provided to you.”

Bond closed his eyes. He could feel a nascent pounding behind his eyes. “They never stipulated that I was supposed to be in regular contact, merely that I was to call that number if I had any questions or problems.”

“And so far, no calls.”

“I haven’t had a problem small enough for them to handle.”

“Well, they want you to call it more frequently.”

“Of course they do.”

“I’m sorry, James, I have to go. Is there anything else you need?”

“Thank you, Moneypenny, you’re a wonder.”

“ Tschüss .”

# # #

A female voice answered on the third ring. “ Ja ?”

“Guten Abend, ich bin Herr Green . Spreche ich mit Palette?”

“Einen Moment,” she said. A moment later, she gave a different number.

Bond dialed the second number and got a different woman’s voice. “ Hallo  . Wer ist das?”

“Ich bin Herr Green,” he said again.

“Oh, yes,” she continued in merry German. “The Englishman.”

‘Oh, yes,’ thought Bond grimly, ‘the security. Absolutely stellar.’ 

“Is there a message for me from Palette?”

“They want to meet with you as soon as possible. Tonight. At eleven-fifteen, be at the U-Bahn station on Bersarinstraße.”

“That’s under the Frankfurter Tor, yes?”

“Yes. Be at the Frankfurter Allee exit where it meets Warschauer Straße. You will see a man in a light overcoat. He will hold a briefcase with a company name printed on its outside. That name will be ‘ Mittelstrecken Flugzeug Gesellschaft .’”

‘Middle Distance Aeroplane Company,’ Bond translated for himself. “Got it.”

“He will give you an envelope with further instructions.”

“Why not just read the message to me? Save us both all of this rigamarole.”

“These are my instructions.”

Bond had always thought of the Germans as a compliant, dour, compliant, orderly, compliant, well-organized, compliant people as a whole. Sourly, he said, “Anything else? Will he have a flower in his lapel? An eyepatch? Any code words or phrases?”

“Simply introduce yourself at Herr Green. He will respond as ‘Herr Furst.’ Any other response, deviate and depart. Assume you’re being followed.”

‘Christ,’ he thought to himself, ‘more amateur hour.’

“We could’ve done all this over the phone, you know.”

“That is all, Herr Green.” She broke the connection before Bond could retort.

# # #

The Bersarinstraße subway station opened its doors in 1930. Its architect had designed the whole line, and in keeping with German uniformity, it was semi-identical to the other stations on the E-line, save that its color scheme was bright blue tile and its platforms were much wider than other stations, necessitating a double row of columns to support the roof. At the time, the city of Berlin was planning to install an elevated rail from the Warsaw Bridge to Frankfurter Tor. 

Bond arrived at the station about fifteen minutes before the appointed time, and ran a quick walk around the various exits, looking for anything that he might construe as suspicious. The U-Bahn station was busy, disgorging patrons for Berlin’s bars, cafés and nightspots, and whisking home the most industrious of her people.

Like much of Berlin’s infrastructure after the war, the Bersarinstraße U-Bahn station had been renovated to the best of its capacity by the cash-strapped and overly-stretched city government, but it still held an air of dingy misuse. The station had suffered from air bombings twice, and the old scars were patched over but not removed.

The traditional and proud  Insulaner  , what Berliners call themselves, boiled out of subway cars and across the platforms and up the stairs to the street exits, to where they could grab a late meal, or go to one of the many vast tenements that made up this section of Berlin, or sit in one of its many coffee shops and, over  Milchkaffee  or  Radler  , argue politics or new taxes or the U.S. bombing of Bikini Atoll or where to go to next, until the waiters flushed them out, or take in a  Kino  , or go to one of the new  Kabaretts  which seemed to attract too many of the Allies that guarded Berlin against a wholescale Soviet take-over. Young men in dark woollen suits waited while their white-haired girlfriends adjusted make-up in whatever shiny surface they could find. A group of three young men, dressed in suits, were in animated conversation about a new movie that featured a fire-breathing radioactive dinosaur stomping on downtown Tokyo.

The man with a graphical representation of an Art Nouveau airplane, over the words ‘ Mittelstrecken Flugzeug Gesellschaft ,’ arrived five minutes before midnight, coming down the stairs to take up a position alongside a kiosk that sold magazines, newspapers and cigarettes, the three crucial ingredients for a healthy German.

At midnight on the dot, Bond approached the man. He was small in stature, severely balding and be-spectacled, and studied the crowd with an obvious inquisitive expression upon his face.

Bond said, “ Hallo  .  Ich bin Mr. Green .”

In a low voice, the man said, “ Bitte sprechen Sie Englisch .”

“Wait, what?” Bond asked.

“ Scheiße ,” the man muttered to himself. Then in English, he continued, “Mr. Green, I am Herr Furst. It is good to meet you.”

“But of course you are.” The amateur theatrics of this group had eroded Bond’s calm, and he no longer felt like playing along. “You got something for me?”

As the man from the ‘Middle Distance Aeroplane Company’ opened his briefcase, he said, “Why yes, Herr Green. I have some pamphlets right here.”

As he reached in, Bond heard footsteps behind him.

The man’s eyes widened. He half-turned, and Bond was aware of something happening a split-second too late to react. A heavy blow landed on the side of his head, and he fell sideways.

“ Wass ist  ⸺” the man began, but the other two toughs had moved in on him.

A second blow cracked on the back of Bond’s head, and he flattened against the wall of the kiosk. He was aware of the woman in the kiosk staring at him with her mouth formed into a perfect ‘O’ and her eyes bulging wide. He could hear nothing but for a freight-train running between his ears.

A third blow to the kidneys, and Bond slid down to one knee. He lashed back behind himself, touched nothing, but heard leather scrape on concrete.

A loud ‘bap!’ echoed off the enclosing U-Bahn station walls, followed by a second one and then a third.

He shoved off from the kiosk, not so much turning as his feet tangling and in doing so rotating him around.

The man from the airplane company was on one knee. One of the toughs lay flat on his back, his legs making motions like he were trying to walk, arterial red pumping out through the opening of his suit. The man from the airplane company stared at Bond with wild, crazed eyes. He didn’t seem aware of the Nazi-era gun in his hand.

“Whuh ⸺ whuh ⸺ whuh ⸺” Bond was unable to even form words. His vision swam, and for one giddy second he fought back an intense nausea.

In a single smooth motion, the man from the airplane company dropped his gun back into his briefcase and extracted an envelope, which he thrust at Bond.

Bond, his brain slow to process, stared at the white rectangle without comprehending.

“ Hier !” the man said.

Bond still stared at it. He could feel his eyes trying to cross themselves, and a strange and detached part of his brain analytically marveled that he was struck twice in the head.

“ Hier  !” he said with more urgency. “  Nimm es !”

Bond mumbled, “No, I’m, er, Green. Herr Green ⸺”

“Nimm es, du Scheißkerl!” he all but screamed, then he leaned over and stuffed the envelope into a breast pocket before gathering up his briefcase and bolting up the stairs.

He was aware of sound around him ⸺ the weird silence that occupied only his brain was beginning to burn off, like morning fog. He could hear a rumble of sound, of shouts, the sound of people tending to the dying man.

A flutter on the stairs, and he knew the police were en route. Two  Stadtpolizei  hurried down the steps at the far end of the subway. Both looked young and in good health, and as they came down, they spotted the crime. Several of the bystanders were calling to them.

Bond had no idea how good his cover was, or what degree of protection it might or might not provide. He didn’t want to find out.

He lurched to his feet, and again for a moment the whole underground platform undulated around him as if he were in the middle of a Dali painting. Then it clicked more or less back in place, and Bond staggered off into the opposite direction ⸺ toward the stairs down to the platform.

A slew of voices cried out that he was leaving ⸺ having been attacked, he was naturally complicit in the young hooligan’s death.

Bond hit a turnstile and rolled over the top of it, aware of shouts and cries and a strong urgent voice calling out “ Halt !” but he shoved through the crowd coming up.

Bond descended the tiled passageway two steps at a time, earning glares and muttered curses at the crowd coming up. A train had pulled in, and disgorged its flood of people. He risked a glance back ⸺ the two  Stadtpolizei  were crowded into the center of the human ice jam, slowly oozing down after him.

No exits. His brain suddenly decided to inform him that there were no exits except up, past the two cops.

The  Stadtpolizei  struggled to close on him, but sharp words and German stubbornness held them up.

Bond reached the platform as the last of the crowd trailed off the train. He had seconds before the doors clattered shut, and he stretched ⸺ through into that final burst ⸺ a thoroughbred going for a photo finish.

The door slammed on Bond and for a moment re-opened, with the two  Stadtpolizei  surging across the platform, arms outstretched. One shouted for the train to stop while the other tried to catch the door, but it slammed just shy of his fingers, and Bond, his brain still partially seized up, could see one  Stadtpolizei  shouting his rage and frustration while the other continued to gesture futilely at the train in the hopes that it would stop. However, this was Germany, and there were schedules to keep.

# # #

“What the hell happened?” Ackermann demanded.

“What the hell do you mean, ‘what the hell happened?’” demanded Bond in the same tone of voice. “Your boy shot him in a U-Bahn station.”

“First,” said Ackermann, holding up a finger, “he’s not my boy, he’s Godfrey Coombes’ boy. Secondly, what the hell are you doing with a gun?”

“I didn’t have a gun, he had the gun. We were attacked, and he pulled it out of his suitcase and he shot it three times.”

“Where the hell did he get a gun?”

“Ask Coombes! I don’t know!”

Bond leaned back and crossed his arms. They were in a café on Kurfürstendamm, the only two patrons and alone other than for a visibly bored shopkeeper in apron behind the counter.

Bond had debarked the train at the next station and then walked several blocks before trying to hail a taxi that could take him back to his hotel. Between leaving the station and finally getting a taxi, he had put in a single call to the number that Coombes had given him. He told the operator what she could do with her protocol and to get Ackermann ⸺ Mr. Brown ⸺ on the line when he called again in an hour.

An hour later, Ackermann was indeed at the contact number, and Bond had ordered him to the café  post haste .

“How do we report this?”

“I don’t care,” declared Bond. He had a brandy in front of him, and a small towel wetted with cold water pressed to his head, where he was developing a good-sized bump. The shopkeeper was unphased when he asked for the wet towel. “We have to get rid of these cowboys.”

“It’s not that easy ⸺”

“They are rogues, Theodor. They are loose cannons. They are animals thrashing about blindly in the jungle. They are unpredictable.”

“ What happened, again? Walk me through it.”

“I go into the meeting place, which is the Bersarinstraße U-Bahn station. I wait for the contact. He arrives. We make contact. Three men attack us. End of story.”

“With what? What did they attack you with?”

“Knives and a kosh. I was koshed.”

“Who were they?”

“I was too occupied and didn’t have a chance to ask.”

“I mean, were they dressed like  apache ? Or in suits and ties? Were they dressed like clowns?”

“Suits, lightweight, European. White shirts. Generic ties. Unremarkable.”

“So this wasn’t some random attack, like muggers going for your wallet.”

“In a U-Bahn station, that strikes me as unlikely.”

“So this was related to our work with Pushkin.”

“Well, I think that takes the top prize for brilliant deductions.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm, Bond.”

“There is every need for sarcasm, Ackermann. These Section 42 people do not know what they are doing. It is as simple as that.” He spoke to Ackermann as if he were a child, or a travel agent. “They will muck everything up, and we will lose Konstanteen.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm,” he repeated. “I’m trying to work out what happened, James, so bear with me.”

“One dead, in a morgue. The other, I don’t know. Might be in police custody, might not.” He sighed and examined the towel. There was no blood on it, which he took as a good sign. As he re-applied it gingerly to his head, he added, “Get in touch with the morgue people.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Ackermann said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “This is crazy. Why would someone attack you?”

“They were trying to scare us off.”

Ackermann looked at him. “Oh? How so?”

“If this was a hit, they’d have attacked us with knives right off. Or guns. But they sapped me. I imagine they wanted to wound the courier rather than kill him. His having a gun was a surprise.”

“Scare us off? Why?”

“Oh, c’mon, Theodor, you’re not that dense, are you?”

“Pretend that I am. Walk me through it.”

“There are two things here that should be of concern to us and to Coombes and to the Section 42 people. One, some other players want Kronsteen. If they scare us off ⸺ the one big customer ⸺ and then either you or Coombes or Pushkin will have to find a new buyer for him, quick.”

Ackermann slowly nodded. “That makes sense,” he admitted.

“Which means, next time they won’t try and scare us off. Next time, they’ll try and kill us.”

“Oh. Well, that’s reassuring. What’s the second thing?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” 

To Ackermann’s headshake, Bond said, “How did they know about the meeting?”


	10. Nach Osten

What frustrated Bond the most was that, as he suspected, the whole thing could have been dealt with through a single phone call.

The envelope contained a single square of paper with a pencil-marked note. It gave an address and a time and a date ⸺ six in the evening, the next day, in Leipzig, in East Germany.

It was a two-hour drive from Berlin, depending on traffic, but it required passports and the appropriate stamps and visas. 

Bond as Melvin P. Neydermeier was approved almost immediately for a three-day visa. He wondered if Pushkin had arranged for that to happen. Bond also arranged for the rental of a green-colored Opel Olympia Rekord.

East Germany, or The DDR, was born in 1949. Most of its border was sealed off in the spring of 1952, to prevent the steady outflow of refugees, and thus staunch the hemorrhaging of talent, education and skills. Barbed wire at first, much of the border was hardened over time, and patrolled by well-armed  Grenzpolizei , with orders to shoot to kill anyone who was crossing without permission.

From inside his rental car, Bond showed his Neydermeier passport first to the American soldier at Checkpoint A, then he was admitted into East Germany as far as Checkpoint B, where he was ushered out of the Opel and into the checkpoint building.

Merciless lighting inside the checkpoint hut emphasized the merciless nature of the guard’s station. Even the chairs looked uninviting.

The Grepo at the counter held out a hand for Bond’s passport. He riffed through it. “ Wie viel Geld haben Sei ?

In reply, Bond pulled out his money and laid it on the counter. The Grepo made a note on a file, counted the money, made a second note, and then endorsed his papers. “ Haben Sei eine Kamera oder ein Transistorradio ?”

“Only the radio in the car,” he responded in German. Around him, the small hut seemed busy, mostly with tourists who mostly spoke nearly-no German. The guards in turn spoke nearly-no any other language.

The Grepo stamped his passport with great vigor, and then bade Bond to go on his way.

His passport was checked again before he got into the car, on the logic that somewhere between the hut and the car he had somehow managed to counterfeit it. It was fine.

A soldier swung up the red-and-white striped barrier, Bond pulled forward, and he passed into East Germany.

The drive to Leipzig was through a landscape that was, in turns, a pastoral scene that would make Bond think of the landscape paintings of Gainsborough and Marlow, although of a subject dotted with bomb craters and the ruined hulks of buildings and the flat pads where factories used to stand.

Leipzig itself had been a trade and mercantile town since before time began, lying at the confluence of the White Elster, Pleiße and Parthe rivers, and straddling the Via Regia and the Via Imperii. It was once an important center of learning, although the 20th century and the Second World War had greatly diminished that. It had undergone aryanisation, the horrors of Kristallnacht and the Jewish expulsion, then the genocide. Of the 11,000 Jews living in Leipzig in 1933, by war’s end only fifty-three survived. 

Both Leipzig and neighboring Dresden were carpet-bombed by the Allies. Unlike Dresden, the bombs deposited on Leipzig were conventional, resulting in a patchwork pattern of destruction, unlike the firestorm that engulfed Dresden. Losses were nevertheless extensive.

Ten years later, Leipzig was still struggling with rebuilding, not aided by the fiscal policies of its Soviet masters, which agreed that if no one could share the wealth, then the least they could do was share the poverty. When the Russians took control of East Germany, they scoured it clean of anything useful. Under the guise of reparations, much of its industrial base was picked up, sawed off, disassembled, hacked up, packed up, and removed, bolt by bolt and brick by brick, to the Soviet Union. A flood of material exited East Germany, severely damaging its ability to rebuild.

Bond found Leipzig depressing. It was part Medieval fairytale world, with Renaissance-style buildings dating from the 16th century, grand baroque-period trading houses and palaces, and numerous pseudo-Gothic buildings put up at the turn of the century. The rest of it was Soviet architecture at its most cheerless and stark, built amid the detritus of the war.

The address that Bond wanted was in the suburb of Markkleeberg, an industrial zone just outside of Leipzig and on the River Pleiße. It too had suffered under the Allied bombings, but didn’t have the initial charm of Leipzig prior to that. It seemed to consist almost entirely of warehouses and equipment shops, surrounded by farms and pastures.

The address proved to be an auto mechanic’s shop, Kreuzmacher Auto-werks, in a cramped three-bay building that occupied the first floor of a three-story apartment complex. The middens of auto repair were carefully stacked outside the building on a spot of dead land between the building’s wall and the street.

Bond parked his rental Opel just off from the corner. The three bays were unlit and dark and crowded ⸺ a black Mercedes in the first bay was receiving all of the attention of the work crew, a grey-green Wartburg was up on a lift in the second bay, and the third bay was a repository of miscellaneous parts, spare tires, radiators, hoses like snakes, gutted car frames, dismembered doors and windshields, and hoods stacked like toast on a toasting rack. Benches were crowded against the wall, covered in a variety of tools. More were pinned to the wall.

As Bond exited the Opel, one of the workers turned and raised his hands in a Viking greeting. “ Anglichanin !  Privetstvuyu !”

It was Pushkin, in grey overalls. His face lit up in what appeared to be genuine delight. “Herr Neydermeier, you made it!”

It took a second for Pushkin’s false name to click back into place. “Herr Aristarkhov. Please, let’s shout for the whole world to hear, shall we?”

Pushkin laughed at that and gestured him inside. “You worry too much,  Anglichanin .” He spoke in German.

“Quite the opposite,” replied Bond, also in German, “I don’t worry enough.” He noticed that the three other workers in coveralls ⸺ a father and his two sons ⸺ were focused on the Mercedes’ engine with such intensity that they seemed to not have noticed his noisy arrival.

Pushkin indicated the auto shop with the pride of an owner. “Kreuzmachers have been working on German car engines since Karl Benz invented the first car.”

“I think that was Henry Ford.”

“Bah,” Pushkin replied. “Capitalist lies. There were Kreuzmachers on the assembly line at Mannheim and it was a Kruezmacher who designed the first high-compression-ratio piston for the Heightclimber Zeppelins of the Great War. Kruezmachers have maintained the Mercedes Benzes of the Romanovs and the Hapsburgs and the Sultans of Persia and the royalty of Italy. Their reputation is beyond reproach.”

“And now they own all this,” replied Bond with a broad gesture that took in the dark and dirty three-bay auto shop.

“Don’t let its appearance fool you, Herr Neydermeier. These men are loving craftsmen, very talented. Masters. Here, I will show you.”

He turned and rapped on the roof of the Mercedes. “Horst. Take your boys and get coffee or something.” He punctuated this with a flourish of Ostmarks.

The eldest of the three ⸺ Horst, Bond assumed ⸺ collected the bills and wordlessly led his two sons out of the repair bay. Bond noted how they conspicuously avoided eye contact with the Russian.

Pushkin watched their departure with paternal pride. “To have a son that loves you as they love him, eh? That would be something.”

“Fantastic.”

Pushkin indicated the Mercedes Benz. “It’s for Kronsteen,” he said, switching flawlessly to English.

“You’re going to give him a car? Doesn’t he already have one?”

Again, Pushkin laughed. He was in a good mood. “Not like this. Come here.”

He led Bond to the front of the Mercedes. It was a newish Ponton, the W120, a family car with four stout doors.

Pushkin leaned on the fender and indicated the engine compartment, which was crowded with too much engine. “These cars are provided with a standard 1.8 liter engine which generates something like sixty-five horses of power, if I understand that correctly.”

Bond smiled at ‘horses of power.’ “Whatever you say.”

Pushkin touched the engine block. “This is a custom engine. A little big, much more power. About a hundred horses of power. Of course, they had to modify the transmission to handle that much extra power.”

“Ahh.”

“You can’t appreciate that, can you, Neydermeier,” he said. “This car doesn’t look it, but it has racecar speeds built into her. In case getting Kronsteen out becomes too hot, and there is a chase.”

“We wouldn’t like that.”

“No we wouldn’t,” Pushkin agreed. “But if there is a chase, then we’d better win it.”

“So you’re going to cruise through Checkpoint Bravo and into West Berlin in a souped-up Mercedes with Kronsteen sitting in the back seat?”

“Ah!” declared Pushkin, with a finger in the air. “Not sitting in the back. Here, let me show you.”

The Russian opened a rear door, stood back, and said proudly, “Find it.”

“Find what?”

“Find it,” he repeated.

With an annoyed grunt, Bond squatted down and, bracing himself on the door coaming, peered into the rear of the Mercedes. It was your standard issue Mercedes family car, with a bench seat and seatbelts and all the rest. “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly!”

“What am I not seeing?”

Pushkin allowed Bond to lever himself out of the car, then he climbed into the Mercedes. Even though it was of generous size, he was still crowded in it. “Here,” said the Russian, and he reached to the bottom of the rear seat. His hand disappeared underneath it, and Bond heard a ‘tick’ as a metal catch gave way.

Pushkin opened the other door and back out. Then, together with Bond, they pulled the rear seat toward the driver’s seat.

“That looks pretty small,” said Bond of the compartment underneath.

“It will be big enough. He has to hide in it only, what, thirty minutes. Forty.”

“If we’re lucky.”

“See here,” Pushkin said, and pointed to the fabric-covered front of the seat. “No structure here, so there’s plenty of air. And the Kreuzmacher’s modified the trunk. Made it fifteen centimetres smaller by moving the wall. You can’t tell for looking, but the trunk is that much smaller.” He indicated the amount. “Plenty of space.”

“So I understand it,” said Bond. “You put Kronsteen into this compartment, click the seat down over him, drive him across Checkpoint Charlie and into our territory. Then what?”

“After that, Kronsteen is your problem. Talk to your cowboys about moving him.” As they pushed the seat back into position, Pushkin said, “I paid for all this, Neydermeier. Don’t worry, it comes out of my end. But I want you to understand how important it is that Kronsteen goes west.”

“Why do you care?”

“You know what he’s working on, yes?”

Bond carefully maintained a neutral face. “My job is to bring him west, Herr Aristarkhov,” he said. “Anything beyond that is outside of my mission brief.”

Pushkin again laughed. “You are so cautious, my new friend. We both know who you work for.”

Bond smiled at that. “Herr Aristarkhov, I only care about collecting Kronsteen. When does he move?” The smile lacked anything that could be construed as warmth.

“It will be in a little over a week. Now, what about my money?”

Bond blinked. “What about it?”

“I may be a Socialist, but I still must make a buck, yes?” He roared with laughter.

“Of course,” said Bond, “what did you have in mind?”

“First of all, you will arrange it. Not Ackermann. Not your man Arnold. Not anybody else that might be involved. I do not trust them. Only you, my friend.”

At that, Bond cocked his head. “Anything I should know?”

Pushkin raised eyebrows at Bond. With a slow and steady motion, he pulled a crumpled packet of Russian cigarettes out of his coveralls. He offered, but Bond declined ⸺ they were the  papirosa sort, an unfiltered cigarette with a cardboard tube that acted as a holder. They were of the sort of tobacco that stripped the lining from your lungs.

Pushkin lit his cigarette. “I like you, Neydermeier, but I don’t understand why you choose to work with bandits like Godfrey Coombes and his people.” He squeezed the cardboard tube and took another drag, then squinted through the smoke out through the garage door. “They are making a fool of you.”

“How so?” Bond asked.

“We are expendable, Herr Neydermeier. You and I. We are pawns in a larger game.” He took another drag off the cigarette, still looking out the bay door. “The difference is that I am expendable, but not until this game is over. When Kronsteen is out of my hands. But you? You’re expendable the moment money is in movement. Coombes and those crooks working for him, they will gut you and leave you to die in a back alley.”

“I wouldn’t like that,” Bond quipped, but he thought about the U-Bahn station.

“They will do anything for money,” Pushkin continued. “They will promise anything for money.”

Bond said nothing at first. Pushkin looked at him sidelong, and allowed the silence to play out.

“What’s it to do with me?” Bond asked at last.

“Tension is growing in Berlin. Mark my words, sometime soon, we Soviets will finish our wall and it will cut through the heart of Berlin. Your people know it. Oh, they don’t accept it, but all the signs are there. Your Berlin Airlift. Increasing security at the border. A need to stem the flow of refugees out of East Berlin.”

“And?”

“And people like Coombes just make it worse, Neydermeier. They ratchet up the tension. Why? Because a state of tension makes it easy for them to perform the sort of work they do. They want the tension, the provocation. It increases demand for their services. They are bandits, and they are working for you. Or rather, that’s what you think they’re doing.”

“Your concern for my well-being is touching. I’m feeling all warm and tingly inside.”

“I want three things,  Anglichanin . I want a, what to say, a ‘nest egg,’ which you will pay me for bringing Kronsteen to you. I want my son to love me again, but that is not something you can help me with. And I want to ruin Coombes and his organization, because they are dangerous.”

Bond regarded the Russian. “I think we were talking about terms of payment.”

Pushkin nodded. He lit up another  papirosa cigarette. “The Aldon has a very fine bar with a very gifted piano player. When you have my money ready, he will play  Alexander’s Ragtime Band three times in a row at nine-thirty on odd-numbered days.”

“Jesus,” said Bond, “that seems cruel.”

“And it will be one hundred thousand of your American dollars.”

“In dollars?”

“Dollars or francs.”

“Cash.” Bond held his gaze with Pushkin for a long moment. Then, slowly, he said, “You’re just going to drop off Kronsteen, collect a hundred thousand dollars, and then walk back across Checkpoint Charlie into East Germany?”

Puskin smiled with some bitterness. “Something like that.”

“You got  yaytsa , my Russian friend.”

“You should take a closer look at your friends, Herr Neydermeier.

What frustrated Bond the most was that, as he suspected, the whole thing could have been dealt with through a single phone call.

The envelope contained a single square of paper with a pencil-marked note. It gave an address and a time and a date ⸺ six in the evening, the next day, in Leipzig, in East Germany.

It was a two-hour drive from Berlin, depending on traffic, but it required passports and the appropriate stamps and visas. 

Bond as Melvin P. Neydermeier was approved almost immediately for a three-day visa. He wondered if Pushkin had arranged for that to happen. Bond also arranged for the rental of a green-colored Opel Olympia Rekord.

East Germany, or The DDR, was born in 1949. Most of its border was sealed off in the spring of 1952, to prevent the steady outflow of refugees, and thus staunch the hemorrhaging of talent, education and skills. Barbed wire at first, much of the border was hardened over time, and patrolled by well-armed  Grenzpolizei , with orders to shoot to kill anyone who was crossing without permission.

From inside his rental car, Bond showed his Neydermeier passport first to the American soldier at Checkpoint A, then he was admitted into East Germany as far as Checkpoint B, where he was ushered out of the Opel and into the checkpoint building.

Merciless lighting inside the checkpoint hut emphasized the merciless nature of the guard’s station. Even the chairs looked uninviting.

The Grepo at the counter held out a hand for Bond’s passport. He riffed through it. “ Wie viel Geld haben Sei ?

In reply, Bond pulled out his money and laid it on the counter. The Grepo made a note on a file, counted the money, made a second note, and then endorsed his papers. “ Haben Sei eine Kamera oder ein Transistorradio ?”

“Only the radio in the car,” he responded in German. Around him, the small hut seemed busy, mostly with tourists who mostly spoke nearly-no German. The guards in turn spoke nearly-no any other language.

The Grepo stamped his passport with great vigor, and then bade Bond to go on his way.

His passport was checked again before he got into the car, on the logic that somewhere between the hut and the car he had somehow managed to counterfeit it. It was fine.

A soldier swung up the red-and-white striped barrier, Bond pulled forward, and he passed into East Germany.

The drive to Leipzig was through a landscape that was, in turns, a pastoral scene that would make Bond think of the landscape paintings of Gainsborough and Marlow, although of a subject dotted with bomb craters and the ruined hulks of buildings and the flat pads where factories used to stand.

Leipzig itself had been a trade and mercantile town since before time began, lying at the confluence of the White Elster, Pleiße and Parthe rivers, and straddling the Via Regia and the Via Imperii. It was once an important center of learning, although the 20th century and the Second World War had greatly diminished that. It had undergone aryanisation, the horrors of Kristallnacht and the Jewish expulsion, then the genocide. Of the 11,000 Jews living in Leipzig in 1933, by war’s end only fifty-three survived. 

Both Leipzig and neighboring Dresden were carpet-bombed by the Allies. Unlike Dresden, the bombs deposited on Leipzig were conventional, resulting in a patchwork pattern of destruction, unlike the firestorm that engulfed Dresden. Losses were nevertheless extensive.

Ten years later, Leipzig was still struggling with rebuilding, not aided by the fiscal policies of its Soviet masters, which agreed that if no one could share the wealth, then the least they could do was share the poverty. When the Russians took control of East Germany, they scoured it clean of anything useful. Under the guise of reparations, much of its industrial base was picked up, sawed off, disassembled, hacked up, packed up, and removed, bolt by bolt and brick by brick, to the Soviet Union. A flood of material exited East Germany, severely damaging its ability to rebuild.

Bond found Leipzig depressing. It was part Medieval fairytale world, with Renaissance-style buildings dating from the 16th century, grand baroque-period trading houses and palaces, and numerous pseudo-Gothic buildings put up at the turn of the century. The rest of it was Soviet architecture at its most cheerless and stark, built amid the detritus of the war.

The address that Bond wanted was in the suburb of Markkleeberg, an industrial zone just outside of Leipzig and on the River Pleiße. It too had suffered under the Allied bombings, but didn’t have the initial charm of Leipzig prior to that. It seemed to consist almost entirely of warehouses and equipment shops, surrounded by farms and pastures.

The address proved to be an auto mechanic’s shop, Kreuzmacher Auto-werks, in a cramped three-bay building that occupied the first floor of a three-story apartment complex. The middens of auto repair were carefully stacked outside the building on a spot of dead land between the building’s wall and the street.

Bond parked his rental Opel just off from the corner. The three bays were unlit and dark and crowded ⸺ a black Mercedes in the first bay was receiving all of the attention of the work crew, a grey-green Wartburg was up on a lift in the second bay, and the third bay was a repository of miscellaneous parts, spare tires, radiators, hoses like snakes, gutted car frames, dismembered doors and windshields, and hoods stacked like toast on a toasting rack. Benches were crowded against the wall, covered in a variety of tools. More were pinned to the wall.

As Bond exited the Opel, one of the workers turned and raised his hands in a Viking greeting. “ Anglichanin !  Privetstvuyu !”

It was Pushkin, in grey overalls. His face lit up in what appeared to be genuine delight. “Herr Neydermeier, you made it!”

It took a second for Pushkin’s false name to click back into place. “Herr Aristarkhov. Please, let’s shout for the whole world to hear, shall we?”

Pushkin laughed at that and gestured him inside. “You worry too much,  Anglichanin .” He spoke in German.

“Quite the opposite,” replied Bond, also in German, “I don’t worry enough.” He noticed that the three other workers in coveralls ⸺ a father and his two sons ⸺ were focused on the Mercedes’ engine with such intensity that they seemed to not have noticed his noisy arrival.

Pushkin indicated the auto shop with the pride of an owner. “Kreuzmachers have been working on German car engines since Karl Benz invented the first car.”

“I think that was Henry Ford.”

“Bah,” Pushkin replied. “Capitalist lies. There were Kreuzmachers on the assembly line at Mannheim and it was a Kruezmacher who designed the first high-compression-ratio piston for the Heightclimber Zeppelins of the Great War. Kruezmachers have maintained the Mercedes Benzes of the Romanovs and the Hapsburgs and the Sultans of Persia and the royalty of Italy. Their reputation is beyond reproach.”

“And now they own all this,” replied Bond with a broad gesture that took in the dark and dirty three-bay auto shop.

“Don’t let its appearance fool you, Herr Neydermeier. These men are loving craftsmen, very talented. Masters. Here, I will show you.”

He turned and rapped on the roof of the Mercedes. “Horst. Take your boys and get coffee or something.” He punctuated this with a flourish of Ostmarks.

The eldest of the three ⸺ Horst, Bond assumed ⸺ collected the bills and wordlessly led his two sons out of the repair bay. Bond noted how they conspicuously avoided eye contact with the Russian.

Pushkin watched their departure with paternal pride. “To have a son that loves you as they love him, eh? That would be something.”

“Fantastic.”

Pushkin indicated the Mercedes Benz. “It’s for Kronsteen,” he said, switching flawlessly to English.

“You’re going to give him a car? Doesn’t he already have one?”

Again, Pushkin laughed. He was in a good mood. “Not like this. Come here.”

He led Bond to the front of the Mercedes. It was a newish Ponton, the W120, a family car with four stout doors.

Pushkin leaned on the fender and indicated the engine compartment, which was crowded with too much engine. “These cars are provided with a standard 1.8 liter engine which generates something like sixty-five horses of power, if I understand that correctly.”

Bond smiled at ‘horses of power.’ “Whatever you say.”

Pushkin touched the engine block. “This is a custom engine. A little big, much more power. About a hundred horses of power. Of course, they had to modify the transmission to handle that much extra power.”

“Ahh.”

“You can’t appreciate that, can you, Neydermeier,” he said. “This car doesn’t look it, but it has racecar speeds built into her. In case getting Kronsteen out becomes too hot, and there is a chase.”

“We wouldn’t like that.”

“No we wouldn’t,” Pushkin agreed. “But if there is a chase, then we’d better win it.”

“So you’re going to cruise through Checkpoint Bravo and into West Berlin in a souped-up Mercedes with Kronsteen sitting in the back seat?”

“Ah!” declared Pushkin, with a finger in the air. “Not sitting in the back. Here, let me show you.”

The Russian opened a rear door, stood back, and said proudly, “Find it.”

“Find what?”

“Find it,” he repeated.

With an annoyed grunt, Bond squatted down and, bracing himself on the door coaming, peered into the rear of the Mercedes. It was your standard issue Mercedes family car, with a bench seat and seatbelts and all the rest. “I don’t see anything.”

“Exactly!”

“What am I not seeing?”

Pushkin allowed Bond to lever himself out of the car, then he climbed into the Mercedes. Even though it was of generous size, he was still crowded in it. “Here,” said the Russian, and he reached to the bottom of the rear seat. His hand disappeared underneath it, and Bond heard a ‘tick’ as a metal catch gave way.

Pushkin opened the other door and back out. Then, together with Bond, they pulled the rear seat toward the driver’s seat.

“That looks pretty small,” said Bond of the compartment underneath.

“It will be big enough. He has to hide in it only, what, thirty minutes. Forty.”

“If we’re lucky.”

“See here,” Pushkin said, and pointed to the fabric-covered front of the seat. “No structure here, so there’s plenty of air. And the Kreuzmacher’s modified the trunk. Made it fifteen centimetres smaller by moving the wall. You can’t tell for looking, but the trunk is that much smaller.” He indicated the amount. “Plenty of space.”

“So I understand it,” said Bond. “You put Kronsteen into this compartment, click the seat down over him, drive him across Checkpoint Charlie and into our territory. Then what?”

“After that, Kronsteen is your problem. Talk to your cowboys about moving him.” As they pushed the seat back into position, Pushkin said, “I paid for all this, Neydermeier. Don’t worry, it comes out of my end. But I want you to understand how important it is that Kronsteen goes west.”

“Why do you care?”

“You know what he’s working on, yes?”

Bond carefully maintained a neutral face. “My job is to bring him west, Herr Aristarkhov,” he said. “Anything beyond that is outside of my mission brief.”

Pushkin again laughed. “You are so cautious, my new friend. We both know who you work for.”

Bond smiled at that. “Herr Aristarkhov, I only care about collecting Kronsteen. When does he move?” The smile lacked anything that could be construed as warmth.

“It will be in a little over a week. Now, what about my money?”

Bond blinked. “What about it?”

“I may be a Socialist, but I still must make a buck, yes?” He roared with laughter.

“Of course,” said Bond, “what did you have in mind?”

“First of all, you will arrange it. Not Ackermann. Not your man Arnold. Not anybody else that might be involved. I do not trust them. Only you, my friend.”

At that, Bond cocked his head. “Anything I should know?”

Pushkin raised eyebrows at Bond. With a slow and steady motion, he pulled a crumpled packet of Russian cigarettes out of his coveralls. He offered, but Bond declined ⸺ they were the  papirosa sort, an unfiltered cigarette with a cardboard tube that acted as a holder. They were of the sort of tobacco that stripped the lining from your lungs.

Pushkin lit his cigarette. “I like you, Neydermeier, but I don’t understand why you choose to work with bandits like Godfrey Coombes and his people.” He squeezed the cardboard tube and took another drag, then squinted through the smoke out through the garage door. “They are making a fool of you.”

“How so?” Bond asked.

“We are expendable, Herr Neydermeier. You and I. We are pawns in a larger game.” He took another drag off the cigarette, still looking out the bay door. “The difference is that I am expendable, but not until this game is over. When Kronsteen is out of my hands. But you? You’re expendable the moment money is in movement. Coombes and those crooks working for him, they will gut you and leave you to die in a back alley.”

“I wouldn’t like that,” Bond quipped, but he thought about the U-Bahn station.

“They will do anything for money,” Pushkin continued. “They will promise anything for money.”

Bond said nothing at first. Pushkin looked at him sidelong, and allowed the silence to play out.

“What’s it to do with me?” Bond asked at last.

“Tension is growing in Berlin. Mark my words, sometime soon, we Soviets will finish our wall and it will cut through the heart of Berlin. Your people know it. Oh, they don’t accept it, but all the signs are there. Your Berlin Airlift. Increasing security at the border. A need to stem the flow of refugees out of East Berlin.”

“And?”

“And people like Coombes just make it worse, Neydermeier. They ratchet up the tension. Why? Because a state of tension makes it easy for them to perform the sort of work they do. They want the tension, the provocation. It increases demand for their services. They are bandits, and they are working for you. Or rather, that’s what you think they’re doing.”

“Your concern for my well-being is touching. I’m feeling all warm and tingly inside.”

“I want three things,  Anglichanin . I want a, what to say, a ‘nest egg,’ which you will pay me for bringing Kronsteen to you. I want my son to love me again, but that is not something you can help me with. And I want to ruin Coombes and his organization, because they are dangerous.”

Bond regarded the Russian. “I think we were talking about terms of payment.”

Pushkin nodded. He lit up another  papirosa cigarette. “The Aldon has a very fine bar with a very gifted piano player. When you have my money ready, he will play  Alexander’s Ragtime Band three times in a row at nine-thirty on odd-numbered days.”

“Jesus,” said Bond, “that seems cruel.”

“And it will be one hundred thousand of your American dollars.”

“In dollars?”

“Dollars or francs.”

“Cash.” Bond held his gaze with Pushkin for a long moment. Then, slowly, he said, “You’re just going to drop off Kronsteen, collect a hundred thousand dollars, and then walk back across Checkpoint Charlie into East Germany?”

Puskin smiled with some bitterness. “Something like that.”

“You got  yaytsa , my Russian friend.”

“You should take a closer look at your friends, Herr Neydermeier. Especially Ackermann. He is the biggest crook of them all.”

“I’m having the same thought.”

Pushkin turned to Bond and tapped him in the chest with a stern, blunt finger. “One hundred thousand dollars, Neydermeier. In cash. Or you don’t get Kronsteen.”


	11. The Beach at Hendaye

Bond worked the telephone that night. He telephoned everyone that he could, from the Section 42 contact number to bars where he and Ackermann had enjoyed drinks.

Everywhere, the reply was the same.

Ackermann wasn’t there.

They didn’t know where he was.

No one knew when he was expected. 

His index finger sore from dialling, Bond looked through the glass panel of the telephone booth at the back of a ratskeller where he had ensconced himself with a pair of dry martinis and a handful of coins.

He checked a slip of paper from his pocket and dialled another number. “The hell is this,” he got by way of greeting.

“Arnold?”

“Neydermeier?”

“I’m looking for Ackermann. I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Oh. Didn’t Coombes tell you?”

“No.”

“Place called, hold on, lemme check.” The phone clunked on a bedside table as Arnold set it down. “Here it is,” he said as he picked it up again. Place called Hendaye. Hendaye-plage, near the Spanish border.”

“On the Med?” Bond asked. The name didn’t ring an immediate bell.

“The coast,” Arnold said. “Now, lemme get back to sleep, it’s damned late.

# # #

Hendaye was a small village on the Atlantic Coast at a spot where France rubbed up against Spain. It was divided into three parts ⸺ the town, which stretches from Saint Vincent's church to the area around the railway station; the seaside quarter, or la plage; and the heights, which was a popular camping area and situated between and behind the other two.

Given its location, its history was replete with cross-border raids, fortifications thrown up and torn down again, the occasional siege, and a massacre or two. Spanish and German leaders, including von Ribbentrop and Hitler himself, had met at the train station to discuss Spain’s part in the Axis during World War Two.

Two of its most notable sons were Martin Guerre, a 16th century peasant who was a famous imposer, and Etienne Pellot, a French corsair. And of course, Hemingway lived in Hendaye during the ‘20s.

Today, it boasted a weekly open-air market in the town square and 17th-century ruins that one could visit, as well as a couple of monasteries. But it was mostly of interest to people who liked to go hiking, camping and perhaps even climbing on the Jumeaux rocks, weathered stone on the rugged, wind-swept coast that resembled stacked stones.

Drifting sand marbled the road along  la plage. The sun shone bright but lifeless in a sky like carefully washed zinc, leaning in toward the mauve hills. The lonely beach wandered for miles in either direction, desolate except for an occasional lost  béarnaise cow lowing at the surf. The cold wind was too much even for the heartiest of outdoorsy tourists. Nearly all of the hotels were shuttered against the wind. It caused Bond’s rented Peugeot to shiver, and made him glad that it was equipped with heater and a radio that picked up the only station in range, a Spanish station playing Basque folk music.

Most of the town's restaurants were in the  quartier de la Plage  and at the waterfront along the Bay of Txingudi. The ruins of the 17th-century fortifications and the old cannons facing Hondarribia in Basque Spain were a feature of the promenade.

Bond parked his Peugeot a street off from the Promenade, and wended his way through a twisty alley with garbage can landmines and ominous puddles to the front of a glass-encased restaurant on the Boulevard de la Mer, a padlocked kiosk with a torn sign saying ‘Ices’ to act as sentinel at the door. A few cars had parked on the Promenade, all of them looking more tourist than local. A silver Simca Ariane had nosed in next to the kiosk.

Bond pushed through the glass door into a room warm and lit in amber. A young girl in a pink smock looked up from the accounts book over which she had been pouring. “ Oui ?”

Bond asked for coffee, and was seated at a rough-hewn table. She brought him the coffee and a coffee service in silver, and Bond stared out at the grey confluence of sky and sea just past the window, lit in the growing pink of the setting sun. “Do you have any guests?” he asked wearily in French. This was his dozenth cup of coffee and his dozenth inquiry, and his stomach and veins were swimming in caffeinated water and his brain was soft and spongy.

“Just a pair,” she said in a gentle tone. “A husband and wife.”

“Oh? French?”

“Oh,  non , monsieur  .  Un Allemand et sa femme américaine .”

Bond cocked his head. “If I may ask, what is their name?”

“ Monsieur et madame Brown .” She pronounced the name as if it were three syllables.

He set aside his cup of coffee and said, “I should like to check in.

# # #

The dining room was set with a dozen tables under linen, with napkins and silverware at the ready, even though only three guests were expected to dine. Cinzano ashtrays marked every odd bar chair, and behind the counter was a hectare of shiny chrome for making and shaking cocktails. Behind the bar were rows of bottles, lit from below. The tile floor reflected the chill from the outside.

The girl in the pink smock had changed into a black dress and false eyelashes. “ Que voulez-vous boire ?” she asked as Bond ponied up to the bar.

“Martini,  s'il vous plaît ,” he said.

“Gin or vodka?”

Bond shrugged. “Gin, for a start. Then a vodka martini.”

She smiled. “I admire your style, M. Neydermeier.”

Bond poured a Gordons and Dolin into his face, and both he and the girl in black agreed how difficult it was to operate a hotel in a place such as Heydaye. From the kitchen, he heard the hiss and crackle of a deep fat fryer, and the swish of things dropped into it. 

Bond learned that the Browns had arrived yesterday they arrived, but the girl didn’t know how long they were staying, but the longer the better. She joined Bond in his second martini ⸺ she had a Disaronno Originale neat.

He kept his back to the entry and heard them before they entered.

The girl in the black dress made to indicate to Bond that they had arrived, but a glance from him and she arrested herself, then nodded with understanding. The blonde woman was his wife, and M. Brown was cuckolding him.

Bond glanced over his shoulder as they walked past. Ackermann wore a cashmere overcoat over his lightweight bespoke Savile Row suit ⸺ she wore a creamy silk gown and her hair teased to a towering height.

Bond mouthed a ‘ merci ’ to the girl and, martini in hand, stepped off the stool and followed them to the table.

The looked up at him as they were seating themselves. “Hello, Mr. Brown,” Bond said in English. “Mrs. Brown.”

The shock showed on the faces of Theodor Gabriel Ackermann and Shiri Ritchfield.

But Ackermann recovered first. “Mr. Green, please join us.”

The dinner was mostly quiet. As Hendaye was at the junction of the French and Spanish coastline, on the Atlantic, they were served  bacalao a la Vizcaína  ⸺salt cod in the Basque style. 

Midway through the meal, which Ackermann had been picking at in a desultory fashion, with his attention absorbed by the movements of his fork, he suddenly asked, “Do you have to follow me?”

“I’m here on business, Mr. Brown. There’s been some difficulty.”

“Difficulty?” Shiri Ritchfield asked.

Ackermann said, “You don’t have to call me ‘Mr. Brown,’ you know.”

“Don’t I, Mr. Brown?”

“What difficulty?” Shiri asked.

“Nothing much,” Bond said. “Small hold-up with documentation. Something related to a vehicle, a Mercedes.” He gestured to the plate. “Don’t care for the fish?”

“What car?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Bond. “Nobody could reach you. Finally, I figured out you were here.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Mr. White thought you might be here.”

It took him a moment to connect ‘Mr. White’ to Major Kerwin Arnold. “Ahh,” he said, and that was it. 

Bond gave a patently false laugh. “We might have guessed there would be a hang-up.”

The waitress came from the kitchen. When she saw Ackermann’s plate with only half the fish eaten, she asked, “Didn’t you like it?”

“It’s fine.”

“Shall I bring you something else?”

“No,” he growled.

“We also have  piperade  , or  marmitako .” 

“This is fine,” he said.

“Or  ris de veau .”

“This is fine!” he snapped, then looked around embarrassed, even though they were the only diners in the room.

“I’ll have  ris de veau ,” said Shiri in a small voice.

Bond said, “The gentleman and I are fine, thank you. But if you could, send out a bottle of wine.”

“We have  Txakoli .”

“ Txakoli ,” he agreed, not quite sure what it would be.

Staring at his plate, Ackermann said, “I’m sorry,” in a small voice. His mind was far away.

Once she departed, Bond studied Ackermann for a long moment. “What’re you playing it?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, ‘what?’ Where are we?” Before Ackermann could answer, Bond pushed forward. “We are a whole country away. Not just that, but on the furthest edge of France from Berlin. And I had to hunt you down to find you. Why?”

He looked uncomfortable at first. And then he spoke, as if having decided to share. “My being here has to do with the Lemon deal.”

“This is a long way to go to talk about Mr. Lemon,” said Bond.

The waitress’ return interrupted them, and gave Ackermann the space he needed to think about his story. She set a plate of  ris de veau  before Shiri and delivered an opened bottle of the Basque white sparkling wine with three glasses gripped with fingers inside the rims.

When she was gone, Ackermann airily waved a hand. “It’s no secret, Mr. Green. I’ve found it best to compartmentalize my contracts. It’s something I learned over the wire.”

“Over the wire?” Bond said. “I didn’t know you were from East Germany.”

“Leipzig,” he said in a whisper. “I was born in Leipzig.”

Shiri looked at him as if seeing him in a new light ⸺ she too hadn’t known this before. “What were you in East Germany?”

Bond smiled. It was a perceptive question. 

Ackermann picked up the bottle and poured three glasses, again buying himself time. “I was what I needed to be,” he said enigmatically.

“Some people needed to be some pretty fantastic things,” Bond observed.

“I did plenty,” he said defensively. “And yes, some things of which I’m not proud. There’s really no point in denying it. A man has to live with the things he does.”

Bond said, “I suppose everyone has skeletons in the cupboard.”

“What have you done?” he asked pointedly.

“Nothing I care to discuss here.”

Ackerman leaned back, the balloon of amber-white dotted with miniscule bubbles in one loose hand. “I never did anything terrible. I never tortured anyone. I have never killed. I never participated in any atrocities. But I did what I had to do.”

“So you escaped?” she asked, a bit of meat poised between plate and lips. “You escaped East Germany.”

Ackermann didn’t answer but for a curt nod. 

“You were a spy,” said Bond. Not a question.

“I was part of the system. No different than the men in the control towers watching the border, or the Grepo stamping passports and drinking horrible coffee in those ice-cold huts at the checkpoints. I’m ashamed that I was part of the system, but if he is honest, so is the factory worker who produced the Grepo’s boots, or the policeman, or the railway guard.”

“How did you get out?” Shiri asked.

Theodor looked at her provocatively. “By whatever means that I had to,” he said, and the tone of his answer ended the conversation.

In the awkward pause, Ackermann sighed. “Look,” he said to Bond in a conciliatory tone, “when you’ve worked for London as long as I have, you learn to see their good points and their bad points. I knew that if I were to work on Mr. Lemon’s project, I had to be well away from the local environment.”

That didn’t explain why Shiri Ritchfield was there, nor that they were registered as ‘Mr. and Mrs. Brown,’ but he let it slide. “Trust London to cock it up,” he said.

“Just be glad you aren’t on a contract-by-contract basis, like me. Then you’d really start pouring it heavily onto the expenses.”

Bond laughed at that, and Shiri managed a tepid smile. 

“What about the cash for Pushkin?” Ackermann asked. “He’ll want cash, you know.”

“I was going to offer him a post-dated check, and ask him not to cash it for a week or so.”

Ackermann laughed and rubbed his hands. “Cash in hand.”

“Will he sign a receipt for it?” asked Bond. “I was asked to get receipts.”

# # #

They all went to bed shortly after midnight, all three pleading exhaustion and satiation.

They all went through the motions and said good night, and made promises for breakfast together the next day.

But no one slept.

Bond was in his room only long enough to wrap himself in his warmest coat. He exited as quietly as he could and made his way across the street to the plage, where he found a lamp post that needed his support. The wind screamed around him like demented seagulls, and the yeasty scent of the ocean engulfed him.

Midnight passed, and then 1:00 a.m.. He wondered if he had made a miscalculation by 1:15 a.m., and was considering packing it in by 2:00 a.m.. Still, he held out, and by 2:30 a.m. was rewarded by the arrival to a pair of bright headlights. They were not yellow, which suggested that they were from across the border, and were stuck into the weirdly shark-like snout of a white Citroën DS 19. Tires crunched on the sandy road, and the chauffeur alighted smartly and opened the rear door even as Ackermann came down the steps. The light above the rear seat illuminated the other passenger ⸺ a white-haired man of about fifty, but Bond could tell no more than that. 

The chauffeur waited while Ackermann looked up at the hotel, at Bond’s room’s window. Then Ackermann climbed into the Citroën. The chauffeur closed the door quietly, got in behind the wheel, and they drove away. As the car pulled away, Ackerman looked back again at the hotel room window.

As the tail lights vanished, Bond moved stiffly back to the hotel stairs. The Citroën DS 19 was an expensive car.

He closed the hotel door silently. 

From overhead, he heard stiletto heels move quickly across the upstairs floor. 

He moved back through the hotel front door and waited on the porch, again leaning against a post, his arms folded. Behind him, phosphorescent breakers crumbled into shimmering lace just shy of the beach. The moon washed out the stars from the sky, like a thin paint. 

The front door opened softly and a woman’s figure made a brief silhouette.

Shiri Ritchfield, fully dressed. 

From her earrings to her eyeshadow, it was obvious that she too had not been to bed.

She gasped as Bond moved. “Theodor’s gone.”

“You startled me!”

“He’s gone.”

“Where?”

She pulled the neck of her coat tight. “Just gone? Nothing else, just gone?”

“Gone.”

“He said he was going downstairs. Then I heard a car drive away.” She looked to her left and said, “His car is still here.”

He moved.

Bond left hand grabbed Shiri’s elbow and his right opened the front door.

“Mr. Neyder ⸺”

He forced her through the door. “Go,” he said, and shoved her toward the stairs.

“What’s wrong with you?” Too loud.

“Keep your voice down.” He grabbed her elbow again and forced her up the stairs. “You’re hurting me!”

At her door, Bond ordered her to open it. She struggled with the key, and dropped it once.

The door swung open. Bond shoved her in, closed the door behind them, and ordered her into the corner. “You don’t have to be mean.”

“Do it!”

She complied.

A grey leather travel case was open and empty on one bed, and there was another at the side of the wardrobe. Bond opened the other travel case, which yielded a small packet of Kleenex and a shoe-horn. Women’s clothes were in the wardrobe, which Bond prodded and twisted and poked, listening for the crackle of paper at the seams.

Bottles of cologne, nail polish, make-up and shampoo crowded the dressing table alongside packets of cotton balls, two pairs of women’s sunglasses, and a packet of Galoises. 

“Mr. Neydermeier?”

“What?”

“What Theodor said, was that all true?”

“Likely,” Bond said. “Handbag.”

She was cowed, and passed it to him.

Bond opened it and studied the contents carefully, then dumped it on the bed. Nothing unusual ⸺ an address book, her cell phone, more make-up and chapstick. There was an American passport in the name of Shiri Ritchfield and two thousand American dollars worth of crisp hundred-franc notes.

“I don’t believe it.”

Bond pocketed the euros and the passport. “People seldom report facts wrong. They usually distort their relationship to the facts.”

“He loves me, you know.”

“Does he.” Bond swept the goods on the dressing table into the empty travel case. “He left you behind, didn’t he.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Yes,” he agreed. From the dresser, he gathered up fistfuls of Shiri’s underwear, packets of nylons, and miscellaneous jewelry. “But I’m going to offer you the deal of your life.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“Come on.”

“Why did you take so much trouble with me but let Theodor go free?”

“We still need Ackermann.”

He guided her back down into the lobby, where he planted her in a chair. By then, the owner of the hotel ⸺ he bore a resemblance to the girl who had helped Bond earlier ⸺ came out from the back, tying the sash of his robe.

“ Téléphone, s'il vous plaît ,” Bond said.

He glanced at Shiri, who was seated with arms folded, glaring out the door, and at Bond. He pulled the phone from behind the counter and set it before Bond.

As Bond dialled a number from a small card, he ordered the owner to make a pot of coffee. “I’m having coffee made,” he told Shiri.

“Terrific,” she said in a tone that indicated anything but.

To the voice that answered, Bond said, “I need a number four,” and gave the name of the hotel. “That’s in Hendaye.” He hung up without waiting for a response.

He joined her, and she said, “You’re a goddamned cool customer.” Her voice had neither admiration nor bitterness.

“I do what I have to.”

“You really wanted Theodor, didn’t you.”

“Perhaps.”

The owner came out and announced that coffee was percolating. Bond thanked him.

To Shiri, he said, “Ackermann is a dyed-in-the-wool thoroughly black-hearted one hundred percent pure bastard.”

“He’s a better man than you.” She didn’t raise her voice, even slightly. “I love him.”

“Shall we have coffee?”

She nodded absently.

They stood ⸺ she was crushed, and wouldn’t run now ⸺ and together they located the percolator. There was sugar and honey, but no milk.

As they made their way back to the lobby, holding white cups, the lights of a car swept past the lobby door.

Shiri took her seat, but Bond remained standing.

“You’ve committed no crime against France, have you?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Relevant.”

“No,” she said, indignantly, “I have not.”

“Then you’ll be fine.”

Two middle-aged men in belted coats came into the hotel. Shiri looked at them, but they stepped with Bond’s raised hand. He said, “They will hold you for a time. Then they will treat you as an undesirable alien, stamp ‘nul’ on your passport, and send you packing.”

“Packing?”

“First plane to North America.”

She stood, and the two men approached.

In French, Bond asked if they had been briefed. One of them, burdened with a moustache, merely nodded.

Bond passed Shiri’s passport and money to him. “You can have the girl.”

“ Merci Monsieur .”

“Tell your boss that she’ll show you the whole network if you play her right.”

“What!” she demanded.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Bond said to the two men, but meant it for Shiri.


	12. The Good Doctor

The hammering on Bond’s hotel room door began at 8:30 that morning, and wouldn’t let up until Bond dragged himself out of bed and opened it.

Theodor Ackermann stood in the doorframe, both angry and sad.

“Come in,” Bond invited.

He turned and backed into the room, then looked back at the doro to see Ackermann still glaring at him.

“What?” Bond asked, all innocence.

“I’ve been at the police station.”

“That’s great, Theodor, but let’s discuss it inside.”

“They arrested her.”

“Not in the hall.”

Ackermann hissed in anger, then stomped into Bond’s room, slamming the door behind him. His cashmere overcoat was slung over his shoulders. The sleeves hung limp like broken limbs.

“The police station,” Bond prompted. “Why?”

“I don’t know, damn you, they gave me the runaround.” He ran a hand through his fine luxuriant hair and inspected Bond’s room for hidden policemen.

“What are you angry about?”

“They arrested Shiri! Didn’t you hear me?”

Bond said, “Well she must have done something to deserve it. Did she irritate them?”

“Irritate them!” he barked. “We work for your government!”

“And? Last I checked, we’re in France.”

“And I think you had the police arrest her.” He punctuated this by stabbing a finger at Bond.

“Don’t be ridiculous, why would I do that?”

“We work for your government!” he repeated

“You didn’t tell them that, did you?”

“Of course not! I didn’t tell them a thing.” He was getting angry all over again. “They asked me all sorts of questions. In an interrogation room. For four goddamned hours.”

“Then you need a drink.” Bond indicated an opened bottle of Haig on his dresser.

Ackermann regarded the whisky, then checked his watch ⸺ early morning ⸺ then with a dismissive gesture indicated that he would accept one.

Bond picked up a tooth glass from the bathroom. “What did you tell them?” he asked as he poured Ackermann two fingers worth of whisky.

“Of course not,” he said. He downed the whisky like a man dying of thirst. “I’m not staying here,” he announced. “I’m going back to Berlin.”

“All right.”

He gave Bond a spiteful look. 

“Come on, Theodor, either tell me what this is all about or don’t tell me anything, but you can’t expect me to believe that the police interrogated you for four hours at the police station because you’re such a wonderful conversationalist.”

From downstairs sounded a little bell to alert them that breakfast was ready.

Ackermann finished his second whisky. “One of the policemen told me that Shiri was asked to leave the country.”

“Whatever for?”

“Her papers weren’t in order.”

“What papers?”

“What’s what I kept asking,” Ackermann said, “asking and he really couldn’t tell me.” He held the tooth glass in two hands and tapped fingers on its side. “Everything has gone wrong on this job.”

Bond said nothing, knowing that in an interrogation, silence can be as effective a tool as probing questions.

He was rewarded. Ackermann stretched out his legs and studied the toes of his expensive Oxfords. “I try to keep everyone happy,” he mumbled to himself.

“Try to make everyone happy and you’ll never get anything done that is worth doing.”

Theodor stared at him for a long time, until Bond began to think that Ackermann had gone off the bend.

“You’re right,” he agreed. He studied his shoes again and said, “You’re right,” two more times.

Ackermann let Bond pour him another Haig. “So why did you come here?”

“I came down here to consult a man. I saw him last night. He lives in Spain.” He looked at Bond and added, plaintively, “You don’t know how much time I’m putting into this, and how much work is involved.”

Bond tried to look like a man who was just listening to someone else’s trouble to be polite. 

“This man,” Theodor continued, “I knew him from my earlier days.”

“In East Germany?”

“I’ve known him for years. The French got their hooks into him. When he was driving me back here, they refused him entry at the frontier.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Ackermann said. “And they hauled me out of the car and drove me here.”

“I’m sure it was just a routine check.”

“Four hours, Neydermeier. Four hours.”

“So you were across the border into Spain and they stopped you at the border coming back.”

“Yes,” said Theodor.

“Who is this man? Why did you consult with him?”

Ackermann was quiet for a moment. “He says he knows about Kronsteen.”

It felt like a lie, but Bond didn’t probe it further. “And did he?”

“The whole thing is falling apart,” Ackermann said to himself as if by answer. “Will London be upset with me now?”

“Falling apart in what way, Theodor?” asked Bond pleasantly, but the phrase has raised every warning within him.

“Just... just it’s so hard.” His mouth worked as if he wanted to give a different answer. As if the truth and the lie were competing and it was the lie that won. “It’s just so hard. Will London be cross with me?”

“What on earth for?”

“For messing about down here instead of being in Berlin.”

“I shouldn’t imagine so,” said Bond, still pleasantly. “What’s falling apart?”

But the whisky was working its wonders, and Ackermann was in that netherworld of not sober but not quite drunk either. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not cut out for this life.”

“No one is,” said Bond. “You have to look at it like a sausage-making machine. Put a success story in one end, and money and promotion come out the other.”

“Okay,” Ackermann interrupted. He glared at Bond. “They want a success story, we’ll give them one.”

“Atta boy,” said Bond with an Americanism that he’d picked up years before. 

# # #

Bond didn’t know if it was the labyrinthine French phone system, or if it was on London’s end, but the connection to M was staticky and prone to fade-out. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

“I hear you loud and clear, 007,” growled M ⸺ or Bond assumed it was a growl ⸺ “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, sir. For the moment.”

“As I was saying, it’s no good blaming Ackermann. He’s given you more co-operation than you could reasonably ask for.”

Bond had booked the call shortly after ushering a now-half-drunk Ackermann out of his room. He had agreed to go to his own room to sleep off the effects of the whisky and the loss of Shiri Ritchfield. Bond had made sure he downed two more tooth glasses worth of whisky, so that he would snooze for a time.

The line faded out again, and when it returned, M was in mid-harangue. “... bringing in the Hendaye police force. Seriously, 007, contacting Station P-Paris for a number four. A grave error of judgment.”

For this operation, a ‘number four’ was a special request of the residence staff to arrange for the arrest and detainment of a person for an undefined length of time. By law, the French Code of Criminal Procedure allowed for a  garde à vue ⸺ ‘police custody’ ⸺ for a maximum of forty-eight hours barring unique circumstances, which they were allowed to extend for up to sis days for complex criminal cases, of which espionage was considered one. Add to that a special arrangement between MI-6 and the SDECE, or France’s counterintelligence service, and the paperwork for a suspect might get lost, the suspect might disappear into the maze-like jail and prison system, sometimes errors in name or arrest date make it hard to find the suspect or the paperwork, and with the whole cumbersome bureaucratic apparatus working against you, a suspect could remain in police custody limbo for months at a time.

“The SDECE should be happy,” Bond said. “I gave him that girl and said she was working for Bonn.”

“Which was a lie.”

“Which was the truth. I didn’t say which side she was working for. In any case, there’s quite enough to keep them busy.”

“You’re not the one having to sort it all out,” M growled again. He was growling a lot. “You make a lot of trouble and leave it to this department to apologize, explain that we all make mistakes, and promise that you won’t do it again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Bond curtly.

“According to the PM, Bond, I am not to encourage these sorts of actions. The PM, mind you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The reason we are involved in this operation is because we want to learn as much as we can about Karlshorst in general and Pushkin in particular. Whatever else you conclude, right or wrong, don’t make any mistake about Ackermann. He’s a damn good chap; whatever you may feel about him.” The voice faded out again, and when it returned it was flanked by a rich background crackle. “... in future you, don’t request such actions in the field without permission....” It disappeared again.

“Yes, sir,” Bond said, figuring from the timbre of what he was saying and reacting accordingly.

“... ack to Miss Moneypenny. She can fill you in on that car license number.”

“Very good, sir.”

The line went dead, and for a moment Bond thought that the connection was lost. Then Moneypenny came on. “James, are you there?”

“Barely,” he said. “They’d do better with two tin cans and a length of string.”

“Well, I hear you just fine. That letter.”

“What letter?”

“In Hebrew. You found it in ⸺”

“In Miss St. Odine’s baggage,” Bond remembered. “Yes.”

“Nothing special as far as we can tell. It’s just a conversational letter.”

“About?”

“Family stuff, mostly. Aunt Beryl is sick with the flu. Cousin Hymie is now studying at NYU. That kind of thing.”

“No hidden code?”

“Not as far as we can tell. Colloquial Hebrew, written in hand. Bic pen. Common-grade paper. The address is an apartment block in Tel Aviv.”

“Addressed to her?”

“Well, to a Larry St. Odine.”

“That’s her,” Bond said. “No hidden messages? No invisible ink or microdots or little messages hidden behind the stamp or anything like that?”

“No, nothing special. Other than it’s written in Hebrew.”

Bond thought for a moment. But nothing came of it. “White Citroën DS 19,” he reminded her.

“Yes,” she said as if suddenly remembering as well. “Belongs to a Dr. Lukas Hagedorn. Some information here on height and appearance and such.”

“Those I know. What’s his background?”

“There’s not a lot. Born in Leipzig in 1921, qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1941. That same year, he was inducted into the German Army. No combat experience, but he served in base hospitals. After the war, he served as a witness at Nurnberg, then was released to work in hospitals in the British sector of Berlin. Let’s see, he’s worked part-time as a sales representative for a radium therapy machinery company. Moved to Northern Spain in 1950, qualified as a doctor. Looks like he owns property along the North Spanish coast.”

“What kind of property?”

“Houses, lots, farms. Mixed bag.” A moment of quiet. “James are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Let’s see. Married a Spanish citizen in 1953, became a naturalized Spanish citizen himself in 1955. Two children.”

“All rather mundane,” Bond said.

“It makes no sense that France would not allow him in.”

“I wonder if the SDECE has a different paper on him.”

“Could be,” Moneypenny agreed. 

# # #

Bond was back in Berlin by early evening, in time for a light dinner before cocktails with Devereaux and Coombes at a bar on the Ku-Damm.

Der Luau Haus was the German variant on a typical California tiki bar. Not large, its ceiling was defined by rough-hewn beams wrapped in hemp rope, glass fishing buoys in net, and blowfish shellacked into spiny spheres. Casks filled the corners and supported hurricane lanterns, and mats covered the walls. Low-wattage bulbs burned under grass shades that were probably a fire hazard, and the wall behind the bar consisted mostly of different grades of rum and tequila. A pretty Chinese  hausfrau in  sarong with a plastic flower in her hair led Bond to a back table watched over by a statue of Lono screwed to a supporting beam.

Coombes and Devereaux, in their suits and ties, looked as out of place as Bond felt. Both looked up from large ceramic mugs shaped like dancing  wahine and guarded by paper umbrellas, wedges of fruit and colorful swizzle sticks.

She asked, “ Kann ich dir einen Maitai besorgen ?”

“ Haben Sie schottischen Whisky ?”

“ Nein, tut mir leid .”

“ Dann was auch immer sie haben .”

She left behind menus and sashayed back to the bar. “What are you drinking?” Bond asked as an afterthought.

“Hell if I know,” said Devereaux glumly. The exotic sounds of Martin Denny played on the bar’s speakers over an underscore of tropical bird sounds, and the environment was mutely festive, but Devereaux looked as though he were attending the funeral of a favorite aunt.

“I had a message at my hotel that you were after me.”

Devereaux turned it over to Coombes, who answered, “I wished to inform you that everything is ready on our end.”

“What is ready?” 

“Everything is set. Kronsteen will come through. We have a safe house in Zehlendorf. He’ll go there for a few days and then progress on under a new name. He will be papered up good enough to clear Customs. Enter any port you want safe and secure.” Coombes’ voice trailed off.

“Yes?” Bond prompted.

“So we need a final destination.”

“These things will be attended to,” Bond assured him.

“We need them to complete things.”

“And I said they will be attended to.”

Devereaux said, “Your department will look like absolute fools with Kronsteen on the deck of a cross-Channel ferry holding a passport stamped ‘refused entry.’”

“I don’t have a destination yet,” Bond explained.

He stopped when another ceramic  wahine appeared at the table. “ Haben Sie sich für etwas zu essen entschieden ?”

Coombes grumbled something, but Bond asked her to check back.

When she was gone, Bond said, “You’re in a sour mood, Coombes.”

“This whole thing is proving more difficult than I had supposed. We’re not going to make any money on this venture.”

“It’s that damned Ackermann,” said Devereaux. “Just up and disappeared. No good reason.”

“Oh, Theodor,” said Bond lightly. “He’s in Hendaye, last I saw.”

They looked at each other ⸺ Hendaye meant something to them. Coombes asked, “What was he doing there?”

“Truthfully, I don’t know,” Bond lied. “Why?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Coombes. Give over. Is there something I should know?”

Coombes and Devereaux looked at each other again, sullen.

“Oh, come on,” said Bond. “Ackermann was in Hendaye where he met a fellow named Hagedorn. They departed to the Spanish border, and Hagedorn was refused entry.” He decided to leave out the events surrounding Shiri Ritchfield to see if they would fill it in for him.

“You know that?” Coombes asked.

“Moreover, both Hagedorn and Ackermann come from Leipzig. And that’s where Kronsteen starts his journey. This is too large of a coincidence to be a coincidence. Now give, or I cancel everything and walk away.”

“Where did they meet?” Coombes asked.

“Hagedorn picked him up in Hendaye.”

“He’s not allowed in France,” said Devereaux. “If he enters France, he runs the risk of being arrested.”

“On what charge?”

“War crimes.”

“That’s a broad and vague category, Devereaux, try and narrow it down some.”

Coombes said, “He murdered a member of the Vichy Government.”

“Why?”

“On orders of the F.T.P.”

“The  Francs-Tireurs et Partisans ?”

“Yes,” said Devereaux. “The French resistance network organized by the Communist Party. It was a political assassination. He was arrested by the Vichy militia in Colmar in 1943. He claimed to be a German citizen and was sent for trial to Germany. We have no record of any of that, of course.”

“The Allies,” Coombes clarified. “That’s all in Stasi files now. But we understand he got a rather light prison term. Seems the Germans weren’t too upset over who got killed or why.”

“Ackermann works for you,” said Devereaux, “but Dr. Hagedorn?” He shrugged.

“Wait a minute. My information is that Dr. Hagedorn was in the Wehrmacht. Why would he commit a political assassination for the Communists?”

“That’s the question,” Coombes said. “Which side does he work for?”

“You’re telling me that Dr. Hagedorn was a German soldier who was also a Communist and that he killed a member of the Vichy Government?”

“He was a German doctor, Mr. Neydermeier, not a soldier.”

“His papers were good enough to get him across the frontier and to pick up Ackermann, but not good enough to bring him back.”

“Perhaps they soured over that time.”

Devereaux added, “What difference does it make who this Dr. Hagedorn is or what he did in the war? Our task is to move Kronsteen from East Germany to West Berlin, and from there to the destination of your choice.”

“Ackermann went to a lot of trouble ⸺ secret trouble, mind you ⸺ to meet with this Dr. Hagedorn in private,” Bond observed. “This speaks to how reliable is Ackermann, to what extent we can trust him if something serious blows up, and what games he’s playing, if any.”

“You don’t trust Ackermann?” Coombes asked.

“Let me put it this way ⸺ no.”


	13. The Farmhouse

Devereaux had been drinking, so Bond opted to drive.

They passed along the Unter den Linden headed for the checkpoint, not the fastest way of getting there but Bond wanted to give Devereaux time to get a little sobered up.

From the passenger seat in Bond’s rented BMW Neue Klasse, Devereaux said to no one, “You know, I thought I knew this town.”

“Oh?” said Bond. 

“My old man was always telling me about the old country. Hell, even before I stepped on the boat to Europe, I thought of Americans as aliens.”

“You’re German? But your name is Devereaux.”

“Americanified,” he said, “Frenchified. Was Devern, once. Way back.”

Bond turned right at Friedrichstrasse, just before Humboldt University, which was a direct line to Checkpoint Charlie.

Bond dropped into bottom gear as he crossed the tram tracks of Zimmerstrasse, and came up to a line of cars at the checkpoint.

The first thing a visitor sees is the large ‘No Entry’ sign that looked bigger than the little white hut squatting in the middle of the road, with ‘U.S. ARMY CHECKPOINT’ in huge letters on the roof. Other signs warn that ‘You are leaving the American Sector’ in English, German, French and Russian. A flagpole thrust up a limp American flag above a collection of olive-and-white motor pool cars and jeeps. West German policemen lurked outside in long grey overcoats and Afrika Korps caps while inside the hut young pink-faced G.I.s in starched khaki shirts write in ledgers or converse over the phone. 

There was activity at the checkpoint ⸺ camera flashes froze moments of eternity. The pavement shone with water and detergent under the feet of the gaggle of press that crowded around the point, and the boots of the soldiers trying to keep them out of the line of traffic. A U.S. military ambulance waited patiently. Whatever had happened, had happened, and this was the cleaning-up phase.

Because of the chaos, they were waving through vehicles. Bond flipped his Neydermeier passport to the American soldier and an insurance card to the West German policeman, then the same again as he entered the Russian-control sector and continued on toward the Hallesches Tor ⸺ described once as a district of pimps, whores, and brothels.

Bond continued south until he saw the ‘S’ signs indicating the  Schnellstrasse and moved up to the legal speed of sixty kilometers per hour. The BMW proved to be a good and serviceable, despite its geometric appearance ⸺ efficient, well-built, solid, and ugly. Very German.

As he came level with the old Bismarck Chancellery, black and gutted in the bright velvet moonlight, red lights blazed at him from behind. A Volkspolizei motorcycle.

Devereaux sat up as Bond pulled over. “What’s up, what’s going on?”

“Relax,” said Bond.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Relax,” Bond ordered, sternly. “And keep quiet.”

A young man in uniform approached the driver’s side window, stopped, and saluted. “Your papers.”

Bond presented the Neydermieier passport and prayed to god that the Volkspolitizei didn’t see the nervous grin on Devereaux’s face.

The Vopo inspected the papers, then shone a torch across the rear seat and floor. 

He slapped closed the passport and presented it accompanied by a neat bow and salute. “Thank you, sir.”

“May I go?” Bond asked.

“Just switch on your lights, sir.”

“They are on.”

“Main beams must be on here in East Berlin. That is the law.”

“I see,” said Bond. “I didn’t know. Thank you.” He flicked the switch on. 

Bond pulled away as the Vopo returned to his motorcycle.

“Are we good?” Devereaux asked, then repeated, “Are we good?”

“We’re good,” said Bond.

“Are we?” He looked at him with panic in his eyes. “Are we?”

“Relax,” said Bond, “it was just a traffic stop.”

“Was it?”

Bond didn’t answer, but kept driving.

“I need a drink,” Devereaux said, “I need a Goddamned drink.”

When Bond returned from France, he found a message waiting for him at his hotel ⸺ called Pallette.

Pallette said that he was wanted for a meeting, as soon as possible, and was told where to pick up Devereaux ⸺ in front of the Café Kranzler on the Ku-damm in Charlottenburg. He gave an address in East Berlin.

“What’s the meeting about?” Bond had asked.

“Damned if I know,” Devereaux had answered, and from the fumes off his breath Bond knew that he was well drunk.

Now, heading away from Berlin in the Eastern quadrant, with a drunk navigator and ⸺ he was uncomfortably aware ⸺ no weapons other than his leather-soled shoes, Bond felt particularly exposed.

“This damned project,” Devereaux mumbled. “So less viable than the Munich project.”

“What was the Munich project?” Bond asked.

“Nothing,” said Devereaux, “doesn’t concern you, son.” He sighed, and added, “But I’d opt for it, just the same.”

“What’s gone wrong?”

“Wages escalate. Demands escalate. It’s all counterproductive.”

Bond said, “I thought the function of the communist state was to dignify labor, not to denigrate it.”

“Oh, you’re funny.”

“Take a page from European diplomacy. The purpose of political debate is to achieve results, not win arguments.”

“Screw that,” spat Devereaux, “I’d rather win arguments.”

The  Schnellstrasse out of Berlin was lined with trees, stunted by war and pollution and the smoky exhaust that was the norm for the Russian and Eastern European cars around them. Their last few tenacious leaves hung on like jilted lovers. 

As the sun was going down, here and there, young women dressed in trousers attended to small herds of cows or goats, or in one case a few geese, hying them homeward. High-wheeled bullock carts lumbered ponderously along the narrow fringes of the road, and twice big trucks filled with mocking gesticulating girls passed them, coming home from their work in the fields.

To the left, a range of low hills was summit-deep in developing mist, and the road curved to skirt a forest. Ahead of them, an ancient car with a bulbous brass radiator and landau coachwork slowed traffic, Bond overtook it, only to find ahead of them a line of those heavy trucks with articulated trailers, called ‘road trains.’

Five minutes later, Bond said, “Something ahead.”

Devereaux looked. “An accident?” He was suddenly sober. 

Ahead was a vehicle with its lights on and a red and white illuminated bull’s-eye device was swinging blurred arcs across the road.

Bond stopped the BMW. 

The man holding the signalling light wore a white crash-helmet, leather riding-breeches, and a brown leather jacket with stiff red epaulettes. He tucked his signalling-lamp into the top of his black jackboots as Bond wound down the window. He looked at both of the men, then said in German, “Who is the owner of this vehicle, please?”

Bond admitted that he was the renter of the car and passed to the officer the insurance papers and the documents the car rental agency had given to him. 

“Passports,” he insisted, and Bond, with reluctance, passed both his and Devereaux’s.

The officer went over each page in their passports and tugged at the binding. Behind him was a motorcycle with a sidecar, and on the far side of the road a jeep-like vehicle without lights, with two shades in the driver’s and passenger’s seats. 

The man in the crash-helmet took their papers over to the jeep.

“The hell is this?” demanded Devereaux in a harsh whisper.

“Quiet,” said Bond. He could hear the patter of voices ⸺ questions in German, but the decisions were in Russian. 

Then the two men in the jeep climbed out onto the road. One was dressed in a very English style, like a country squire, but the other wore the uniform of a Russian corporal. 

They pressed the papers down on the hood of the jeep and studied them with a flashlight before climbing back in. Then ⸺ without switching on its lights ⸺ the jeep reversed at full speed a distance of six yards before executing a tight bandit’s turn.

“Follow,” ordered the man in the white crash-helmet, pointing after the jeep.

“Better follow it, boy,” said Devereaux. “They got our passports. We’re not going anywhere without them.”

# # #

The jeep turned down a wide fire lane, and the BMW turned off the road after it. The rough ground hammered the suspension. Above them, the tips of firs almost closed out the budding stars.

They sped along the claustrophobic track like lice in a hair-brush, and through the fire gaps Bond caught glimpses of rolling countryside in the growing final embers of the sun. 

Devereaux was silent, or at least, Bond couldn’t hear his muttered prayer.

“Stasi,” he told Bond at one point. 

Bond only nodded. The rutted road beat hell out of the rental car.

The jeep slowed as it reached a clearing where a soldier in a brown anorak was waving a torch. It was large and a small farm fitted snugly into a corner of it. Inside the hollow feudal plan of the farmhouse, Bond spied a cobbled courtyard which held a half-dozen more soldiers, some motorcycles, and a group of baying Alsatians. 

The jeep slowed to a stop and Bond parked behind it.

As he climbed out of the car, a soldier from the back seat of the jeep trained a Type 58 assault rifle at him, the curved magazine cradled in his arm. 

As Devereaux got out, Bond said, “Play is cool, will you?”

“You bet I will.” He raised his hands.

“Put those down.”

He did.

The soldier signaled with the muzzle of the rifle that they were to make their way to the farmhouse. Bond and Devereaux obeyed. They stepped through the small door.

The building into which they were ushered had one simple wooden table and four rickety chairs rising up from a floor of strewn straw. A single door in the back was suggested another room, but it remained closed. Three hens moved sleepily around the legs of the table, unconcerned about the men in the house. An officer in the uniform of the  Feldjäger stood next to the table, pretending to read a sheet of paper. Bond noted that he was not in a routine patrol uniform, but rather the  Weißzeug pattern of uniform ⸺ for parades and ceremonies, the ‘white gear.’

As they entered, he said, “Good evening,” in English and gestured to two weather-beaten chairs.

Devereaux and Bond sat without speaking.

The  Feldjäger ‘s skin and eyes were grey. His forehead was tall and his ears, nose and chin a little too long, like a wax doll that has been left out in the sun. 

Behind them, the door banged open and Bond, turning, saw the Russian corporal enter, intent on opening a bottle. 

The corporal smiled widely at him. “English!” he said. “What a wonderful surprise!”

“Aristarkhov,” Bond said.

It was Major Leonid Pushkin.

“You’re outside of your district, are you not?” he continued, politely.

Pushkin pulled down the front of his brown soldiers’ summer-issue blouse, with its corporal’s insignia. “It was the only uniform I could find that fit me,” he said in English.

The officer in the English country squire outfit followed Pushkin through the door. He held a tray with four thimble-size glasses and a plain tin the size of a floor polish can on it.

“Only the best for you, English,” said Pushkin. 

The  Feldjäger smiled a tight smile, like his skin were too tight and pulled into a weird shape, and the slightest relaxation might tear off his ears. He seemed to study the English Squire as he laid the tray on the rough table.

Pushkin prised off the can’s lid. “Beluga,” he said, holding it out to Bond. “They sent me Ocietrova at first but I said, ‘This is for a special guest. We must have Beluga.’”

Inside the can were light-grey veiny spheres of caviar, like tiny peas gone bad. 

Pushkin produced what looked like a packet of cigarettes, but which proved to be small wafers. He spooned a portion onto each wafer with a plastic spoon, then poured vodka until the tiny glasses brimmed. 

Devereaux leaned over to ask Bond a question, but thought better of it.

Pushkin held up a glass. “To travellers!”

“To motorists!” Bond retorted.

The  Feldjäger let his smile fall off but he took a thimble of vodka.

“To motorists,” said Pushkin, “all over the world.” 

The four drank. and as Pushkin refilled the glasses he said, “They say that all the traffic police are communists and all the drivers are fascists, which would be all right if it were not that all of the pedestrians are anarchists.” He roared at his joke.

Bond prodded Devereaux with an elbow to cue him that he was to laugh, which Devereaux managed hollowly.

Bond said, “Here’s one I heard The factory workers say that it’s impossible to do anything right. If you arrive five minutes early, you are a saboteur. If you are five minutes late, you are betraying socialism. If you arrive on time, they ask, ‘Where did you get that watch, comrade?’”

Pushkin laughed and spilled his drink. The  Feldjäger officer looked at him in disbelief.

The Country Squire offered around a packet of Memfis cigarettes.

Pushkin said, “Capitalism is but the exploitation of man by man.”

“And Socialism is exactly the reverse,” finished Bond.

Everyone laughed and down another round of vodka, although Devereaux laughed with a hunted-rabbit’s expression in his eyes.

The  Feldjäger fished out his pair of soft leather gloves, which he dragged on and smoothed the creases around the fingers and flapped the cuffs backwards and forwards. In German, he said, “If you will excuse me.”

“Go, go,” urged Pushkin, then to the others he said, “Eat! Drink!”

The Country Squire shoveled another wafer laden with caviar into his mouth.

“To Henry Ford,” he said. He had a surprisingly adenoidal voice.

Pushkin was doubtful. “If Henry Ford were born in the Soviet Union, he would be a man I could drink to.”

“If Henry Ford had been born in the Soviet Union,” said Bond, “he would still be making bicycles.”

Devereaux lifted his glass again. “Henry Ford, philanthropist.”

The Country Squire asked in German what the word meant, and Pushkin translated it.

There were toasts to Sputnik, to the inventor of vodka, to detour signs, to Shakespeare and to that ‘famous English cathedral, St Pancras.’’

Then Pushkin held his glass up and proposed “To SPECTRE.”

Bond froze. “Why?”

“Without Mr. Lemon, I will not be getting rich!” Puskin roared again and drank. Bond joined him in the vodka, but not the laughter. “I never know when you joke,” he said.

“Me neither,” said Pushkin.

Pushkin refilled the glasses, and Bond said, “Death to the fascists.”

Devereaux said, “Fascists,” and looked around.

Pushkin said, “Yes! Death to fascists, that I will drink to!” And he did so, with vigor.

‘‘Yes,” said the Country Squire dully. 

There were more toasts after that, but the party had begun to lose its bounce.

When the bottle was empty, Pushkin bid them a safe journey and, with great ceremony, presented their passports.

As they stepped out, full dark had covered the farmhouse and the clearing. The soldiers remained, but no rifles were pointed at them. Bond had drunk more than he should, but Devereaux was drunk all over again.

“Hey,” he said.

“Shut up,” Bond urged him. “Not until we’re in the car.”

They didn’t speak again until they were off the rough stretch of road and headed back to East Berlin.

“The hell was that about?” Devereaux demanded.

“Power,” said Bond. “He was showing us who is the boss. Doesn’t want us getting to big or getting ideas above our station.”

“‘Above our station?’ What does that mean?”

“Means we work for him. Look.” Bond made a gesture behind him. “That traffic motorcycle, the show of force, that farmhouse, even the man in the English tweed.”

“Who was he?”

“I hazard a guess,” said Bond, “probably KGB from Moscow. Probably brought in for the occasion of studying us up close.”

Devereaux exhaled drunkenly. “I wish I knew what Pushkin was thinking.”

“Show of force. That all was a show of force. Even that toast to SPECTRE and knowing that we call Kronsteen ‘lemon.’”

“What does that mean?”

“Someone’s talking to Pushkin about us.”

“I need you to pull over,” said Devereaux suddenly.

“Why?”

“I’m going to throw up.”

# # #

Pushkin finished the caviar by running a stout finger through the interior of the can. The  Feldjäger and the KGB officer ⸺ actually a junior clerk that Pushkin grabbed at the last minute, and him only because he fit the clothes that one of Pushkin’s agents had confiscated from a Czech tourist the day before ⸺ watched his actions with neutral faces. Not even an eyebrow out of place.

With the can cleaned of caviar, Puskin snapped a finger at the junior clerk in the English Country clothes, then jerked a thumb at the door at the back of the room. As he sat, he kicked at one of the chickens, more for something to do. It clucked at him as it skipped out of range, then settled down to hunting for grubs amid the straw.

Pushkin eased off first one boot, then the other. He didn’t seem to mind his sockinged feet on the straw.

The man who came through the door wore a simple black suit, as out of place in the farmhouse as the pseudo-KGB agent and the  Feldjäger . “Well?” he said.

In Russian and again in German, Pushkin ordered the other two out of the farmhouse. When he and the man in the black suit were alone, he said, “I know the one as Jebediah Beauregarde Devereaux IV, of the ⸺”

“The Charleston River Devereauxs,” finished the other man.

“Bah,” exclaimed Pushkin, his demonstration of knowledge ruined. “It’s not my job to think big thoughts. I am only a soldier. The KGB employs others to do that for me.”

The man in the black suit helped himself to vodka in one of the thimble glasses. “And the other?”

“Neydermeier,” said Pushkin, “which I’m certain is a false name.”

“We know him as a British secret agent, MI-6, their double-oh division. Name of Bond. James Bond.”

Pushkin watched his toes flex with great interest. “I’m not a fussy man,” he said. “Something hot to eat, something to wash it down, a little vodka occasionally, and a bed under a roof. I have those, I am not complaining.” He looked up and said. “What about you, Major Arnold? What do you need?”

Major Kerwin Arnold, when he spoke, used fluid and flawless  Berlinisch German. “I think my aspirations are higher.”

Puskin reached for his cigarettes. “You know, I prefer these,” he said, showing the box of Makhoras. “I make it a point to smoke fancy cigarettes when I talk to Westerners, but this coarse ragweed Russian tobacco was what I prefer.”

Major Arnold stared at him with a blank face.

“You should stay in Berlin,” said Pushkin. “Big things are coming, very big things. You will be able to make yourself a fortune.”

“I’ll rotate home, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Damned comfortable, there. With your connection to American goods and my connection to the black market, we can really make a killing.”

“All the same.”

“They know how to look after themselves, Arnold. Sometimes I wonder how we beat them.”

“Nazis?”

“The Germans. We haven’t beaten the Nazis. They’re an idea, and ideas don’t die.”

Major Arnold said, “Lenin’s dream was of a marriage between the Russian and German proletariat.”

“And as with any marriage, the illusion of happy domestication and tranquility is shattered by the hammer of reality. It’s all well to extend a helping hand to the German proletariat, but then you find them in  Wehrmacht uniforms burning down your village.”

“I hate Germans,” said Arnold in the same tone that he might comment on a radio play. 

Pushkin raised his eyebrows. “We knew what to do with Germans,” he said to Arnold. “The lucky ones took just whatever they could carry and crossed the border in cattle trucks. And they were glad to go. That’s what to do with Germans.”

“That’s what you did wrong,” Arnold said. “Lenin would never have agreed to the forced shift of factories and populations.”

Pushkin looked at Arnold’s pale eyes. “So the  Amerikansky is a Stalinist.”

“A realist,” the major answered. “The Germans are the wild animals of Europe.”

“All societies contain within themselves the germ of their own destruction,” said Pushkin. He sighed and put his hands on the table, as if to push himself up. “In the end, we are all just policemen. We let the courts sort out who is wrong and who is right.”

“Policemen shouldn’t get mixed up with justice. Or the law.”

“You’re like so many of my own men, Major Arnold. Well provided with answers. Not obligated to think.”

Blandly, Arnold said, “What was the purpose of this meeting tonight?”

“No purpose,” said Pushkin without pause. “Just a matter of letting them know that we have our eyes on them”

“You never intended to arrest them?”

Pushkin attached a broad smile to his round face and beamed at Arnold. “This is all a matter of gentle probing. Like a brain operation. A hammer and chisel will get through the skull, but after that, you have to be delicate.”

“I don’t much care for the Englishman.”

“Neydermeier?”

“Bond,” Arnold corrected.

“I will always think of him as Neydermeier.”

“He seemed unprofessional.”

“Ah, you are not a spy, then, are you. In this business, that’s the very height of professionalism. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if the Englishman came just to show us that they too are probing.”

“You didn’t order him to come?”

“Devereaux brought him along. Last minute.” Pushkin made a noisy show of picking up one boot, about to slip it on. “Have a drink. You have all the warmth and charm of an unemployed mortician. And think about you and me and the black market. We can make a fortune.”

As he brushed off his left foot, preparatory to slipping it into the boot, Pushkin said, “I always make my plans on the understanding that everyone is untrustworthy.”

Arnold asked, “What about the Englishman agent?”

“He is especially untrustworthy. But he is also a professional, just like me.”


End file.
